U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, introduced “The Advanced Clean Fuels Act Of 2007,” which sets a goal of increasing the volume of clean transportation fuels to as much as 35 billion gallons by 2025. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT) joined Senator Boxer as cosponsors of the measure.
” Significantly increases the amount of advanced clean fuels in the nation’s fuel supply by requiring increasing volumes of fuels that have low greenhouse gas emissions and that are produced in an environmentally sound way.
” EPA is required to increase the Renewable Fuels Standard from 12 billion gallons in 2011 to as much as 35 billions gallons by 2025.
o To count towards the Renewable Fuels Standard, fuel must be at least 20% better than gasoline in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
o The Renewable Fuels Standard would also require increasing volumes of fuels that are at least 50% and 75% better than gasoline in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
” The National Academy of Sciences will periodically study the environmental and other impacts, and the energy independence implications of increasing the amount of advanced clean fuels in the transportation fuel supply.
” The amount of advanced clean fuels will increase, based on the schedule in the bill. As the volume of clean fuels increases, EPA will use its authorities to address any significant environmental effects in order to protect our air, water, and natural resources.
” EPA also must establish an Advanced Clean Fuel Performance Standard that gradually reduces greenhouse gas emissions from the entire transportation fuel supply by as much as 10% of 2008 levels by 2020.
” The bill promotes the use of the most suitable lands for clean fuels development.
” The bill would establish a green renewable fuel labeling program modeled on Energy Star to spotlight renewable fuels that result in 50% lower greenhouse gas emissions than gasoline and that are produced using best environmental management practices.
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Senator John Kerry (D-MA.) introduced the Clean Coal Act of 2007, which prohibits the construction of all new coal fired power plants unless they use state-of-the-art emissions reduction technology.
Over 150 new coal-fired power plants are proposed for construction in the United States. Over their lifetime, those plants will spew an additional 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air.
Kerry also introduced a bill that mandates the Capitol Complex be carbon neutral by 2020.
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U.S. Representative Pete Stark (D-CA), a senior member of the Committee on Ways and Means with jurisdiction over U.S. tax policy, introduced the “Save Our Climate Act”. The legislation would impose a tax on carbon-based fossil fuels to slow climate change.
Said Stark, “Predictable, transparent and universal, a carbon tax is a simple solution to a difficult problem. It would drastically reduce our carbon dioxide emissions by providing an economic disincentive for the use of carbon-based fossil fuels and an incentive for the development and use of cleaner alternative energies. The Save Our Climate Act would establish the United States as a global leader in environmental protection and encourage other nations most of whom have already acknowledged the climate change threat to take similar action to reduce emissions. I strongly encourage Congress to pass a carbon tax.”
An initial tax of $10 per ton of carbon content would be assessed on coal, petroleum and natural gas when these fossil fuels are initially removed from the ground or imported into the US. The tax would increase by $10 a year, freezing when a mandated report by the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Energy determines that carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by 80 percent from 1990 levels.
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