After an intense review of the scientific evidence and careful consideration of public comments, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last month that greenhouse gases (GHG) threaten the public health and welfare of the American people. The EPA endangerment finding covers emissions of six key greenhouse gases including: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride. This EPA assessment is in response to the 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that GHG should be included within the Clean Air Act definition of air pollutants, increasing its emissions regulating power.

GHG emissions have been identified by the majority of the scientific community as the main cause of global warming that threatens the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans, as cited in the EPA report.

The EPA also finds that GHG emissions from on-road vehicles are a contributing factor to this issue. On-road vehicles generate more than 23 percent of total U.S. GHG emissions annually. As a result of the official endangerment ruling, the EPA can now finalize the GHG standards proposed earlier this year for new light-duty vehicles as part of the joint rulemaking with the Department of Transportation. The EPA proposed GHG standards for light-duty vehicles, a subset of on-road vehicles, would reduce GHG emissions by nearly 950 million metric tons and conserve 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of model year 2012-2016 vehicles.

Most important, the EPA ruling allows their agency to enact a GHG emissions regulation system for the most predominant polluters including factories and utilities in the case that the cap-and-trade bill, currently known as the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act does not become law, as it has slipped in priority over the last several months. However, it would be more beneficial for this Congressional legislation to be approved with sufficient legislative and voter support for political reasons but also for economic reasons, since the bill has the opportunity to provide comprehensive energy reform and incentives for establishing a significantly higher percentage of renewable energy sources across the country. A robust renewable energy portfolio standard in a GHG emissions reduction bill would lay the groundwork for previously proposed clean energy research and development and supply chain manufacturing legislation, which have the potential to lift America’s depleted manufacturing sector and create millions of green jobs.

However, in order for there to be a smooth transition towards wide-spread clean energy resources, transmission line and federal land permitting issues will need to be resolved. Many ideal sites for solar, wind, geothermal and biomass large-scale power generation require linkage to the local grid via transmission lines, which requires new construction on federal land in many cases. Opposition continues to large-scale developments in numerous states due to environmental and zoning concerns, even for projects that offer low-carbon renewable energy. Even the world’s most efficient concentrating solar power station cannot serve its purpose if it cannot be connected to the power grid.

Thus, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) recently introduced a bill that is anticipated will improve the federal permitting process to advance large-scale green energy development on suitable lands. The legislation, entitled the California Desert Protection Act of 2010, would require the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to establish offices specifically focused on renewable energy development in each state with significant wind and solar resources on public land. 

These offices would be funded from the existing BLM permit improvement fund, which is a fund that is currently only available to supervise the permitting for oil and natural gas development. This measure would also establish a pilot mitigation bank program to equilibrate the time to review an application concerning private lands with one associated with public lands, without infringing upon important environmental regulations.

Under the bill, federal land managers would be authorized to identify renewable energy development areas where the project is in the public interest through the programmatic Environmental Impact Statement process, which is already in effect. This will help avoid environmental land-use conflicts that can stall projects for years and lead to ultimate cancellation. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has approved similar state legislation regarding land development in his state, while President Obama has included clean energy deployment as a key topic for discernment of best practices in partnerships with China and India.

2010 will be a critical year for the clean energy industry in the U.S., as pending federal legislation will set the bar for long-term growth potential. Without a comprehensive overhaul of energy policy from both a regulations and manufacturing perspective, the full economic benefit will never be realized.

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