National Renewable Electricity Standard Campaign

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National Renewable Electricity Standard Campaign

Updates, resources, and how you can help ensure clean, renewable energy for America.

The current composition of Congress offers us the brightest prospects we have seen in years for passage of a strong national renewable electricity standard (RES). A strong RES would reduce global warming pollution, create jobs, and save consumers money. Requiring utilities to produce 25 percent of their electricity from clean, renewable resources by 2025 would create a large and growing market for clean, renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, geothermal, and bioenergy.

The U.S. Senate has passed a renewable electricity standard bill three times since 2002. In 2007, the House of Representatives passed a weak, compromise standard of 15 percent by 2020, which would have let utilities opt out of about 5 percent of the standard, effectively lowering the standard to about 10 percent.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are moving on legislation now. New UCS analysis of a 25 percent by 2025 RES shows that such a standard would create more “green” jobs, lower consumer energy bills in every region of the country, and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other harmful emissions from power plants—the biggest source of global warming pollution in the United States.

UCS is working with a broad and growing coalition to ensure that the highest quality analyses, based on sound, rigorous science are in the hands of policy makers in Washington. UCS is also mobilizing thousands of scientists, engineers, blue collar workers, and activists to make it clear that the public wants clean energy now.

Take Action - Make Your Voice Heard

Email your member of Congress urging them to sign on as a co-sponsor of the national renewable electricity standard.

Call your member of Congress and ask them to co-sponsor the bill.

Write a letter to the editor.

See a sample letter published in Wisconsin.

Congressional Update

House of Representatives: For the second time in as many years, the House of Representatives passed an RES. Nominally a 20% by 2020 standard, the RES was part of a comprehensive climate and energy bill, H.R. 2454 and called the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), which was introduced by Representatives Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.). ACES was passed the Energy and Commerce Committee in late May and was passed by the full House on June 26th. The RES provision requires covered utilities to generate or buy 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources, or energy efficiency. Under the RES in ACES, utilities may achieve one-fourth (5 percent of the total) of this requirement through gains in energy efficiency and governors may petition for an additional 3 percent in energy efficiency, effectively lowering the renewable requirement to 12 percent. UCS analysis shows that this level of renewable energy would not be significantly greater than the level achieved through state RES provisions and renewable energy development under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus package) passed in February, 2009. UCS and our coalition will be working to strengthen ACES and the RES when it moves to the Senate.

Senate: Meanwhile, the senate energy bill also contains an RES, but in addition to its low standard, the senate RES has serious shortcomings. These shortcomings include a loan system for new energy technologies that could favor funding of new nuclear reactors or coal plants, a transmission provision that does not prioritize new renewable energy production, and a provision that would require the secretary of energy to accelerate development of nuclear waste reprocessing technologies, an approach the Obama administration has abandoned. In June, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed the American Clean Energy Leadership Act (ACELA) which includes an RES. Under the senate committee RES, utilities must meet a goal of 15 percent renewable energy by 2021. Approximately 3 percent of that goal may be met through energy efficiency measures. UCS analysis shows that the actual amount of renewable energy generated would be less than this level, between 7.4 and 10.7 percent. This may be only marginally better than the amount of renewable energy generated through the combination of the state RES programs and the renewable provisions of the stimulus package.