Senate should strength Renewable Electricity Standard
On May 5, 2009 UCS signed on to a letter with 14 other coalition members urging Senator Bingaman and other members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to work to strengthen the Senate Renewable Electricity Standard (RES).
An RES is an essential piece of an overall successful clean energy strategy, and if designed properly, will create new jobs, stimulate the economy, and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the most cost-effective manner. However, an RES that does little to advance the generation of renewable energy beyond business as usual and includes energy sources that are neither clean nor renewable would fail to take full advantage of the opportunity to help our country meet the interrelated challenges of climate change, economic competitiveness, and energy independence.
Unfortunately, the amount of renewable energy development resulting from the proposed RES requirement could be lower than projections by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) for growth already expected in development as a result of the state RES standards and the financial incentives enacted by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
This letter urges the support of an amendment to be offered by Senator Udall to strengthen the RES requirement to 25 percent by 2025. Such a standard would create 297,000 new jobs and save consumers $64.3 billion in lower electricity and natural gas bills by 2025 according to UCS.
This letter also strongly urges the members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to pass a strong RES and to oppose any amendments to further weaken the current proposal.
