Following President Obama’s call for investment in a clean energy economy, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Energy and Environment Subcommittee Chair Ed Markey (D-MA) this week unveiled green economy legislation. The 648-page “discussion draft” of the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act sets national standards for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and global warming pollution, but it does not specify whether industry will be subsidized to achieve those standards. However, the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Joseph Romm still gave the bill a “B+,” because it “boosts the economy, creates green jobs, and puts the country on a path to preserve a livable climate.” The global warming cap-and-trade system described in the bill would restore American technological leadership and steer us away from planetary catastrophe. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) claimed it would “raise energy taxes in the midst of a serious recession.” Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) echoed industry talking points by saying that the pollution targets “impose too much of a burden.” Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) claimed that the bill would “save the planet by sacrificing the economy.”

From The Progress Report