The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has completed an analysis of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R.2454), as reported by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Like all modeling projects, the analysis is an estimate of the likely impacts of the legislation.
The EPA analysis projects that the legislation would substantially accelerate the deployment of clean energy technology that will create new jobs.
Under the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES):
– The U.S. would almost double the share of energy from zero- or low-carbon sources by 2030, as opposed to the business-as-usual approach;
– Advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology would come online by 2015 to 2020 and lead to 25 MW of new and retrofitted CCS coal-fired generation by 2025, as opposed to 2 GW of CCS in the absence of legislation; and
– Roughly 65% of the new generation built by 2025 will be renewable, and 92% will be low-carbon.
The EPA analysis also finds that the costs of the bill are low. The overall impact on the average household, including the benefit of many of the energy-efficiency provisions in the legislation, would be $0.22 to $0.30 cents per day ($80 to $111 per year).
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently projected a cost of $0.48 cents per day for the average household in 2020 ($175 per year). Neither the EPA analysis nor the CBO analysis takes into account the benefits of reducing global warming.
Under ACES, the economy can grow robustly while cutting pollution, according to the EPA. The nation's gross domestic product would grow from $13 trillion in 2008 to over $22 trillion in 2030, while deploying clean energy technology and reducing global warming pollution.
EPA also analyzed the Combined Efficiency and Renewable Electricity Standard and concluded that it leads to an increase in renewable generation and that any slight increase in rates could be offset by energy efficiency.
SOURCE: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
