NEW REPORT: Pallone’s Clean Energy Standard fails to decarbonize the energy sector by 2035
WASHINGTON- A new report commissioned by Friends of the Earth finds substantial concessions to polluters in the CLEAN Future Act, the legislation from Chairmen Pallone and Tonko of the House Energy and Commerce Committee purporting to achieve 100 percent clean energy by 2035. Written by Bruce Buckheit, former director of the Air Enforcement Division at the EPA, the report shows that the proposed Clean Energy Standard would support fracked gas for at least another decade and would likely fail to achieve its own target for reducing emissions.
An analysis of the bill reveals glaring issues:
- CLEAN Future incentives fracked gas for at least another decade
- The bill will likely fail to meet its emissions goal by 2035 due to its failure to retire fossil fuels rapidly and ambitiously.
- The bill calculates emission credits based on 2017 to 2019 levels, ignoring recent coal retirements, and delaying the deployment of renewables.
“Pallone and Tonko can’t claim to be on a path to clean energy by 2035 while allowing fracked gas, biomass, and nuclear energy to continue with business as usual,” said Sarah Lutz, Climate Campaigner at Friends of the Earth. “False solutions will not decarbonize our power sector or get us to clean energy by 2035. This bill would prolong the dirty energy status quo at the expense of frontline communities and the climate.”
“There is little incentive for operators with a full mix of generation to replace gas with RE until 2035 since they get a much better benefit from retiring coal. At which time, a massive (and perhaps unachievable) shift from gas to RE would be required” wrote Bruce Buckheit, author of the report and former director of the Air Enforcement Division at the EPA.
This failure to address fracked gas is incompatible with the rapid transition to clean energy that we must achieve in this decade to avert the worst of the climate crisis.
View the report: https://foe.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Review-of-2021-CLEAN-Future-Act-FINAL-4.8.pdf
Expert contact: Sarah Lutz, [email protected], (202) 222-0725
Communications contact: Aisha Dukule, [email protected], (202) 893-3502