Now that the stimulus bill has passed, Congress is moving on to more environment-specific legislation. According to a recent AP interview, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid expects an energy bill to be ready for a vote within the next few weeks and a climate change bill to be ready by the end of the summer.
The upcoming energy bill will focus on renewable energy and efficiency and will most likely include a national energy standard requiring 20 percent of the energy generated by utilities to come from renewable sources by 2020. A national standard has been proposed before unsuccessfully, but now that several states have passed their own mandates, it's likely to have a better shot this time around.
The senator also expects more tax incentives for energy efficiency, particularly in the construction and retro-fitting of buildings, to be included in the bill.
The climate change bill will concern actions necessary to slow down global warming and will most likely be put to a vote before the international climate negotiations happening in Copenhagen in December. The climate change bill is expected to be more controversial and involve topics like CO2 emission caps.
So far, it seems the new administration is keeping its promise to act quickly on energy and environmental issues. We'll be keeping close tabs on what comes of these bills and keeping our fingers crossed for effective legislation.
via AP
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written by zapperz, February 23, 2009
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written by hsr0601, February 24, 2009
It is capable of reaching 100 miles per hour in speed, has a range of 300 miles, charges in 10 minutes and is pollution free with only the pollution that is done to make the electricity to charge it.
The inventor of this invention has, to my understanding, approached Ford Motor Company with his invention. The Ford Motor Company, in my estimation, should latch onto this idea, pronto.
My understanding is there are members of Congress who are trying to shoot down this idea of an electric car.
Where is there any common sense in this country?
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written by MD, February 24, 2009
I doubt it...
The .gov pigs at the trough do not help those who have not helped them...
My coworker has a late 80's Ford Escort that runs on batteries too... no .gov money for him either..
You need to realize that the .gov piggies do not give a fiddlers F about one persons innovation, one vote does not count for jack...
And the people who appear to be running this country have a lot of people on their payback list.
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written by Heather, February 25, 2009
It seems to me this is smoke and mirrors. Solar power and wind power both need very large areas of land to be viable; transmission lines require large areas of land also.
It will be amusing to watch the Liberals enviromentalist friends suddenly agreeing to all this construction on these huge tracks of land, to provide enough solar and wind power to meet the needs that the Democrats claim they will deliver.
The enviromentalist love alternative energy on paper. But at some point you have to stick a shovel in the ground! That is when they show up to oppose and protest every power plant project!
The only alternative energy power plants are in the Democrats fantasies!
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written by Heather, February 25, 2009
Does anyone really think that we can switch to renewable alternative energy sources and at the same time add to that the demand of all the cars, buses and trucks?
I think anyone who thinks this is going to happen is insane. without at least nuclear power,
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