Engaging with Congress on Climate Change Solutions

Now that the new Congress has been sworn in, EESI is ready to help engage and educate on key energy and climate topics--thanks to you and your support on GlobalGiving! 

With many new Congressional staffers coming in, the need for education on basic issues is urgent. A good example is the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan. This is our country's most significant opportunity to reduce carbon emissions in the short term. It includes considerable flexibility for states, and EPA is currently reviewing and responding to a large number of comments on the proposed plan.

You're helping EESI plan and carry out a briefing to de-mystify the Clean Power Plan – and you and people like you helped us submit comments on the plan. EESI applauded EPA’s efforts to provide states flexibility in choosing compliance options, particularly by allowing states to cut emissions using “outside the fence” options, such as consumer energy efficiency and renewable energy. We also suggested areas for further improvement to help the Clean Power Plan achieve its purpose of reducing climate emissions!

For example, EESI highlighted the potential of combined heat and power (CHP), district energy, biomass power generation, bioenergy, building codes and energy efficiency retrofits as compliance options. These technologies are the underappreciated workhorses of greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts—they don’t make headlines very much, but they’re critical to curbing climate change!

CHP and district energy are ways of increasing efficiency within traditional fossil fuel power plants, by capturing waste heat and using it to provide heat and/or hot water to either the plant itself or to nearby buildings, urban areas, college campuses, etc. Two thirds of the combustion energy used to generate electricity in a traditional fossil fuel power plant is typically wasted; CHP and district energy raise plant efficiency to 90 percent or more. Though phasing out fossil fuels remains the end goal, making their use more efficient is critical in the near term.

EESI recommended that EPA include more energy-efficient building codes as a Clean Power Plan compliance option as such measures are perhaps the most cost-effective way for communities to reduce their emissions. In addition, EESI urged EPA to recognize energy efficiency retrofit programs for buildings (such as the on-bill financing initiatives that EESI is working on) as Clean Power Plan compliance options.

Another key area of focus for EESI is the President's budget request, currently expected to come out February 2nd. You are helping EESI produce an issue brief and organize a briefing on the budgetary areas related to renewable energy and energy efficiency.

EESI's briefings on the budget, held in cooperation with the bipartisan House Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus, are highly anticipated, well attended, and covered in the media. Last year, our briefing on the 2015 Budget: Impacts on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency and our accompanying analysis helped to de-mystify a complex document and showcase its real impacts.

The briefing also makes clear the benefits of less well-known programs in the budget, such as the SuperTruck program at the Department of Energy. The SuperTruck program exceeded its goal to develop trucks that are 50 percent more efficient than current models. We’ll highlight similarly important programs this year – thanks to you!

The federal government—and Congress in particular—have a huge impact on how your community is able to respond to climate change by funding and coordinating disaster relief, transportation infrastructure, and more.

So thanks again for helping us showcase win-win solutions!

Links:

• EESI gives EPA comments and Recommendations on Clean Power Plan
• EESI's last budget briefing
• Follow us on Facebook for more great updates!