Energy and Climate Change Bill

As I expected, it didn’t take long after I created this blog for a new law to enter congress that strives to take away more of our individual rights and give more regulatory power to the federal government. Because of the size and complexity of this bill (1200 pages) I will cover only specific areas in this post.

First, some of the facts: The bill is commonly being called the “Climate Change Bill” but the official title is, “H.R..2454 - To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy.” The official “short title” of the bill is, “American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009.”
The bill was voted on and passed by the House of Representatives on June 26. Before the bill can be put into law it still needs to be passed by the Senate, then the president has the chance to veto it.
The full text of the bill as approved by the House of Representatives can be found here: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h2454rh.txt.pdf
The website OpenCongress.com offers this summary:”This is the Waxman-Markley comprehensive energy bill, known for short as "ACES," that includes a cap-and-trade global warming reduction plan designed to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020. Other provisions include new renewable requirements for utilities, studies and incentives regarding new carbon capture and sequestration technologies, energy efficiency incentives for homes and buildings, and grants for green jobs, among other things.”
A 22 page overview of the bill can be found here: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090515/hr2454_summary.pdf


Ok, now that you know all about the bill, lets talk about the rights we stand to lose if this thing is passed. I picked a section somewhere in the middle of the bill and here are some excerpts of what I found:

Section 201 would change federal building codes as follows:
‘(a) ENERGY EFFICIENCY TARGETS.—
‘(1) IN GENERAL
‘(A) effective on the date of enactment of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, 30 percent reduction in energy use relative to a comparable building constructed in compliance with the baseline code;
`(B) effective January 1, 2014, for residential buildings, and January 1, 2015, for commercial buildings, 50 percent reduction in energy use relative to the baseline code; and
`(C) effective January 1, 2017, for residential buildings, and January 1, 2018, for commercial buildings, and every 3 years thereafter, respectively, through January 1, 2029, and January 1, 2030, 5 percent additional reduction in energy use relative to the baseline code.

`(b) National Energy Efficiency Building Codes-
`(1) REQUIREMENT-
`(A) IN GENERAL- There shall be established national energy efficiency building codes under this subsection, for residential and commercial buildings, sufficient to meet each of the national building code energy efficiency targets established under subsection (a), not later than the date that is one year after the deadline for establishment of each such target.
Part (d) of the same says that the new codes shall carry down to all state and local governments and must be inforced by them.

So basically what we have in this section is a much stricter building code for both residential and commercial buildings. The new building code would attempt to reduce energy usage by 30%, then 50%.

This blog entry is already pretty long so I will not attempt to discuss all the possible problems this would cause for the consumer and the energy provider. Maybe next post.