[Update: Andrew Revkin cites this article at New York Times Dot Earth]

By Teryn Norris
Published by Huffington Post

The biggest news from President Obama’s  Oval Office address is that cap and trade legislation is probably dead for the foreseeable future, and the administration is seeking new ideas.

Instead of using last night’s prime-time opportunity to push cap and trade in the form of the Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act — as many climate advocates saw as their last hope for “comprehensive” climate reform — President Obama pressed the reset button on energy and climate policy, saying he was “happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party, as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.” He made no mention of setting a price on carbon or establishing an emissions cap and trade system.

As Andrew Revkin observed at New York Times Dot Earth, the president “signaled that he is leaving open a variety of paths on energy and climate policy and no longer hewing tightly to the idea of a cap and trade system for restricting heat-trapping emissions — which he never wavered from during his campaign.” David Roberts of Grist, one of the few remaining hopefuls for cap and trade reform, wrote “Final thought: Obama didn’t drive the carbon cap tonight, so there won’t be a carbon cap in the energy bill this year.”

Several key Democratic Senators have reached a similar conclusion. “I doubt very much whether those 60 votes exist right now,” said Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) yesterday on C-SPAN, referring to the 60 votes necessary for cap and trade in the Senate. “The climate bill isn’t going to stop the oil leak,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), asserting that “The first thing you have to do is stop the oil leak.” Echoing these sentiments, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) stated, “There’s not a great call for it in the Democratic caucus,” and Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) called climate legislation “unrelated” to the Gulf spill.

If cap and trade is dead, then what’s next? The only serious alternative that could attract bipartisan support is a comprehensive national strategy for clean energy competitiveness and innovation — including substantial new federal investment in research, development, demonstration, deployment, and manufacturing — to accelerate America’s transition away from fossil fuels, build a strong and competitive clean energy industry, and rapidly drive down the price of low-carbon power and transportation technologies.  These investments could potentially be included as part of a comprehensive energy package, building upon the proposed American Clean Energy Leadership Act.

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With healthcare reform in the rearview mirror, media speculation has shifted to the Senate’s next order of business and the climate bill, originally set to be unveiled on Earth Day but now indefinitely postponed.  But unfortunately, the introduction of this bill does not guarantee energy and climate legislation will pass, or even be a main focus in the months leading up to the midterm election.  Even one of the bill’s lead authors, Lindsay Graham, admits that immigration reform could overwhelm any chance for the climate bill to go through.

An article in BusinessWeek today went even further documenting the uphill road for this legislation in the toxic political atmosphere of tea-party protests, opposition to government, and skepticism on climate science.  So powerful has the opposition become that supporters have moved away from even using the term “cap-and-trade,” preferring instead to describe it as “carbon pricing.”  With even authors of the legislation and prominent supporters so openly cautious and pessimistic, it is no wonder most Congresspeople view this legislation as political poison to be left untouched until after the midterm election.

And if climate legislation waits until the midterm election, it will not pass.  Not after Republicans gain several seats and the road to 60 votes becomes tougher.  Some, including the Wall Street Journal, have suggested Congress might pass the bill in a “lame-duck” session after the election but before the new Congress takes over.  But the possibility of this risky maneuver is slight and the probability that the resulting bill would amount to anything significant almost completely negligible.

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Jesse Jenkins and Devon Swezey, two of my colleagues at the Breakthrough Institute, have a new piece up called “A Clean Energy Competitiveness Strategy for America” as well as a video of their recent presentation at the World Energy Technologies Summit. They write:

“In the face of aggressive foreign competition in the clean energy industry, the United States urgently needs a comprehensive competitiveness strategy of its own to accelerate the development of a domestic clean energy industry and take advantage of emerging export opportunities. Such a strategy should prioritize large and sustained public investments in clean energy R&D, advanced clean energy manufacturing, innovative deployment, and clean energy education.”

Jenkins and Swezey build upon the report we co-authored last year called “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” the first comprehensive report to benchmark national clean energy competitiveness in Asia and the USA.  Read their full piece here, and check out the video below.

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Originally published by Clean Edge

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the United States faces serious questions about the future of its economy and jobs market. Where will the good jobs of the future come from, how do we prepare the American workforce, and what is our strategy to maintain economic leadership in an increasingly competitive world?

A growing consensus suggests that clean tech will be one of our generation’s largest growth sectors. The global clean-tech market is expected to surpass $1 trillion in value within the next few years, and a perfect storm of factors – from the inevitability of a carbon-constrained world, to skyrocketing global energy demand, to long-term oil price hikes – will drive global demand for clean-energy technologies.

That is why the national debate about global clean-tech competitiveness is so important, sparked by the rapid entry of China and other nations. My colleagues and I recently contributed to the discussion with “Rising Tigers, Sleeping Giant,” a large report providing the first comprehensive analysis of competitive positions among the U.S. and key Asian challengers. In order to compete, we found, “U.S. energy policy must include large, direct and coordinated investments in clean-technology R&D, manufacturing, deployment, and infrastructure.”

But even if the United States adopts a real industrial policy for clean energy, there is little evidence that our workforce is skilled enough to compete. Unfortunately, according to the Department of Energy, “The U.S. ranks behind other major nations in making the transitions required to educate students for emerging energy trades, research efforts and other professions to support the future energy technology mix.”

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Originally published by The Stanford Daily

A big event is happening at Stanford next week. On Monday, Mar. 8, U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu will deliver a speech in Memorial Auditorium about clean energy innovation and education, exclusive for the Stanford community, followed by a special expert panel called “Educating the Energy Generation.”

This is an event you do not want to miss, so if you have class, skip it and recruit the rest of your classmates. Dr. Chu is one of the most important government officials in the world. He is overseeing the Department of Energy during the most critical time for energy policy in U.S. history, and the work of this department may truly shape our future more than any other area of government today.

Dr. Chu is pretty much the rock star of government officials. It is not just his position as America’s energy guru, or that he is the first Nobel Laureate appointed to the Cabinet. No, the coolest thing about Dr. Chu is that he is basically America’s nerd-in-chief, and he is the first to say so. In his Harvard commencement speech last year, Chu compared himself to past speaker Bill Gates: “Today, you have me. I am not a billionaire, but at least I am a nerd.”

But beyond his place as nerd-in-chief, there are three reasons why Secretary Chu offers a critical perspective and inspirational message that we should all listen to on Monday. (For the purpose of full disclosure, I co-wrote the invitation that brought him to campus.)

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An op-ed co-written by Applied Materials President Charlie Gay and Breakthrough Institute founders Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus reiterates Asia’s competitive advantage in clean technology and urges the United States to move forward with a cohesive strategy.

We need an integrated strategy, combining the insights and vision of industry, government, academia, utilities and consumers. This approach will facilitate the investment climate required to ensure stability and long-term demand for renewable energy.

There’s room for another “Silicon Valley” of clean technology outside of China. The U.S. can close the investment gap with Asia and provide direct support for its clean tech research and innovation, manufacturing capacity and domestic markets if we pursue a long-term national clean energy competitiveness strategy. Robust and targeted public investments such as the ones committed recently by Obama can pave the way to a new era of U.S. technology leadership and economic prosperity but only if we act now.

Pointing to the current situation of the clean-energy race – with Asian nations out-investing the United States by a 3-1 margin – the authors stress that “while the United States might be behind for now, we are far from the finish line.”  Thus, they argue, the need is urgent to ramp up cleantech investment now.

Read the full op-ed here.

Matt Dernoga from the University of Maryland and Danny Sptizberg and Stephen Collins from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have published op-eds in the The Diamondback and The Daily Cardinal, their respective student newspapers, exhorting local politicians to support funding for RE-ENERGYSE and calling on young people to make their voice on the issue heard.

Read the full pieces here and here.

Highlights of the columns include:

In order to lead the world in global energy technology this century, we have to do more than invest in green-collar jobs for today. We need to create an unparalleled clean energy education initiative to give our up and coming scientists the support they need to innovate for America. This will ensure the green jobs of tomorrow are ours. RE-ENERGYSE is an important step in the right direction – The Diamondback

Some are calling it the biggest market opportunity in history. Experts of all stripes have repeatedly stated that the nation that wins the clean-energy race will be the nation that leads the 21st century economy. Discovering and implementing cheap, clean and reliable energy technologies is our generation’s final frontier. But, how do we get there? President Obama has proposed doing so by increasing funding for energy education and training through a program called RE-ENERGYSE (short for REgaining our ENERGY Science and Engineering Edge).

Now or in the near future, Wisconsin and the U.S. need to increase energy education. Gaining a strong, competitive edge in clean energy requires more than opening markets with policies like a RPS, but taking advantage of those markets by creating talented researchers and a skilled workforce. As the saying goes, if you teach a man to fish, he will build a clean energy economy. If we fail to invest in today’s students, we will miss a critical opportunity and give other countries a head start in the global clean energy race. This is our chance to lead the generation of a low-carbon economy.  - The Daily Cardinal

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