Democrats beat back GOP amendments
Despite an onslaught of Republican amendments, the Democratic bill won broad support from Democrats in various regions of the US – including those from coal-reliant states in the Midwest and the South. The Republican alternative, which proposed more nuclear and hydropower, was handily defeated.
The ACES bill focuses on smokestacks that pump out 85 percent of US greenhouse emissions. It follows a three-way path to shift the nation toward a low-carbon economy: boosting energy efficiency, developing renewable energy sources like solar and wind, and curbing greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGs).
Together these are intended to cut US emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 – a major compromise from the previously suggested 20 percent cut. Still, it would launch America down a 30-year path of continual emissions cuts – reaching 83 percent under 2005 levels by 2050 – to help avoid the worst effects of global warming. The bill is also intended to jump-start a US push into energy-efficient technologies, grow green jobs, and advance national security by shifting the US vehicle fleet toward use of domestic electricity instead of imported oil.
'Cap-and-trade' the key
To do that, the bill’s main mechanism to limit emissions is a market-based “cap-and-trade” system for industrial CO2 emitters. Beginning in 2012, a national “cap” – or total maximum CO2 emissions – would be set and then ratcheted downward annually. Electric utilities, cement and steel plants, and others would need one “allowance” for every ton of CO2 sent up smokestacks. Power plants emit about 2.4 billion tons of CO2 annually – nearly 40 percent of total US greenhouse-gas emissions.
