Judging from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s actions this week, it seems America won’t be getting a renewable energy standard (RES). With mid-term elections coming up and the beltway as contentious as ever, Democrats just don’t have the votes, according to Reid, to enact an RES at the national level — let alone put a price on carbon in the broader economy.
While the Nevada Democrat may be taking heat from his own party for not pushing harder for the RES, Reid doesn’t appear swayed: the version of the bill he unveiled Tuesday is by most measures modest. So, if we’re not getting cap-and-trade, and we’re not getting a renewable energy standard, what will we be getting?
As relayed by CSMonitor, the provisions in Reid’s energy bill include:
- Providing incentives for turning the nation‘s heavy truck fleet to natural gas and toward electrification of the nation‘s transportation sector.
- Promoting “clean energy job creation” providing $5 billion of rebates to encourage homeowners to make efficiency upgrades as part of the Home Star program.
- Fully funding a Land and Water Conservation Fund over the next five years to ensure that vital US lands and waters are protected into the future from climate change damage.
- Increasing the $1 billion liability cap of the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund to $5 billion and increasing fees to pay for it by requiring that oil companies pay 49 cents per barrel into the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
Granted, whatever the Senate passes will have to be reconciled with the House energy bill, which was passed last year and includes a cap-and-trade provision. It’s too early to tell, in other words, exactly what Washington will do (which is almost always true).
But assuming the $5 billion worth of efficiency rebates becomes available via the HomeStar retrofit program, what will be the impact? To put that $5 billion figure in context, our crack team of interns has come up with the following measures:
- Assuming an average price of $35 a pop, America could buy 142,857,142.86 WaterSense-certified showerheads
- According to the draft bill, a $500 rebate would be available for the purchase of a wood pellet stove. At this rebate level, the funds could support the purchase of ten million such stoves.
- 3.3 million rebates (at $1,500 a piece) for wall insulation upgrades.
Most exciting for us: it looks like solar water heaters will be eligible for rebates under some circumstances (see page 333 of the bill). Finally, note that the maximum rebate available for Silver Star and Gold Star efficiency upgrades would be capped at $8,000 per homeowner.
