This post was co-written by Daniel J. Weiss, a Senior Fellow and Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and Alexandra Kougentakis, a Center for American Progress Action Fund Fellows Assistant.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — a front group of big utilities and coal companies — has long professed “support for a mandatory federal plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” But now that the House of Representatives is poised to vote on the American Clean Energy and Security Act, H.R. 2454, ACCCE’s true colors are showing — coal black

In a new ad in Politico (see right), that was published yesterday, ACCCE describes the greenhouse gas pollution reductions in H.R. 2454 as a “high risk proposition.”

America’s Power Army, ACCCE’s grassroots arm, sent an email to its members urging that they “e-mail your Member of Congress today and tell him or her to add consumer protections to the climate change bill.” Never mind that the bill DOES safeguard consumers and broad sectors of the economy from higher prices. Potential increases in energy costs are mitigated through the distribution of allowances, as well as through an Energy Refund Program for low-income ratepayers.

A top priority for ACCCE is money for research for clean coal technology – carbon capture and storage. H.R. 2454 has $60 billion for CCS. The EPA estimates that this funding would make CCS commercially viable by 2015. Yet ACCCE still opposes the bill.

In addition to the vast amount of CCS money, H.R. 2454 has a number of provisions consistent with ACCCE’s “Climate Principles.” Four of the principles demand federal support for carbon capture and sequestration technology, which H.R. 2454 strongly meets through both funding and public-private sector partnerships.

The table after the jump indicates each of the climate principles with the degree of its fulfillment by H.R. 2454. Read more

I’ve just been forwarded this message from DOE:

On June 19th, the United States Senate, by voice vote, confirmed Cathy Zoi to be the Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy

This is a terrific piece of news.  To explain why, I’m going to reprint below my March post “And Obama gives the best clean energy and global warming solutions job to “¦“:

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The news today is of special interest to me because I’m about to buy a MacBook….

CO2 currently at highest level in 2.1 million years

Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are higher than any point in the last 2.1 million years, report researchers writing in the journal Science.

Analyzing the shells of single-celled plankton buried under the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa, B¤rbel H¶nisch, a geochemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and her colleagues dtermined that peak CO2 levels over the last 2.1 million years averaged only 280 parts per million. By comparison current CO2 levels stand at 385 parts per million, or 38% higher than the long-term peak.

Are ‘Green’ MacBook Ads Misleading?

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In an otherwise illuminating segment on the Diane Rehm radio show Wednesday about climate change impacts in the United States, one guest played the fool: Stephen Moore — the Wall Street Journal editorial board member, Cato Institute senior fellow, National Review contributing editor, and regular CNBC and Fox News commentator. While his fellow guests — Obama science advisor John Holdren, American Progress president John Podesta, and Bush environmental advisor James Connaughton — discussed the impacts of global warming and how the country can act to prevent catastrophe, Moore argued that the White House’s new climate impacts report is “Stalinistic”:

What I object to about this report is some of the language in this is sort of almost Stalinistic, that there’s an unequivocal conclusion that it’s inarguable that this is happening, that there’s overwhelming agreement among the scientists. None of that is true.

Listen:

Moore also cited the repeatedly debunked Oregon Petition and Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus, arguing it is “highly irresponsible” not to debate the science of man-made climate change. Even though Dianne Rehm admonished Moore for his anti-science outbursts, he continued to pollute the airwaves with Pollyannish complacency . . .

– We’ve talked about global warming as climate improvement.

– The good news is that the bad news is wrong.

. . . an endless stream of discredited lies about global warming and carbon pollution. . .

– John just said nine of the last ten years are the warmest on record. That just isn’t true. In fact, they’ve gone back, and it turns out NASA made a mistake in the model which didn’t get any publicity. John, actually, the truth is the 1930s was a warmer decade than the last decade.

– If there’s a slight uh, global warming trend — and we’re talking about relatively slight, heh — John, there’s just no question that the slight warming of the temperature actually improves agriculture, it doesn’t hurt agriculture. In fact agricultural output would go up.

– In fact, I’m old enough to remember when the scientific consensus that there was going to be cooling, remember, in the 1970s we’re going to have global cooling and we’re all going to starve to death and we’re not going to have agriculture. So you can’t, heh, have it both ways. You can’t say cooling is going to hurt agriculture and warming is going to hurt agriculture.

– We’ve reduced carbon emissions more than Europe has.

. . . apocalyptic and false warnings about the cost of action . . .

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While the climate title in Waxman-Markey is certainly unnecessarily weak as is the renewable energy standard, the bill has many other terrific provisions (see “The triumph of energy efficiency” and “Toolbox Assessment” of Waxman-Markey“).  One of those is the Clean Energy Deployment Administration.  The Center for American Progress, long a champion of such a clean energy bank, has a primer I am reposting.

The Green Bank, or Clean Energy Deployment Administration, is a key element of proposed clean-energy policies. The Green Bank would provide more favorable terms to companies””including lower interest rates and a lower cost of debt””to offset the high cost of financing new renewable energy projects through the private sector. This new financing system will spark the clean-energy transformation and accelerate the cost-effective, large-scale deployment of renewable energies. It would help fund the transition to a clean-energy economy while making renewable energy production competitive with current electricity prices and keeping consumer prices low by facilitating the flow of private capital into renewable energy and efficiency projects. Most importantly, the Green Bank will use its partnerships with the private sector to provide the capital investment and financial security that is critical to the long-term viability of the clean-energy economy.

Why do we need a Green Bank?

The Green Bank would address the following issues:

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By Alex Hallatt
From the Cartoonist Group (click to enlarge)