Obama’s Environmental Policy

June 4, 2008

Associated Press has announced that Barack Obama’s delegate count has reached the level needed to secure the nomination, and while the rest of the country waits for Hillary to finally step aside, it is time to take a closer look at the environmental policy of the likely next president of the United States.

The most notable aspect of Obama’s green policy came when he cosponsored the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act. The bill proposed a reduction of national greenhouse gas emissions of 80% by the year 2050. He is also an original sponsor of the less ambitious Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act, introduced by Senators Joe Lieberman and John McCain, the presumptive republican nominee. It is no doubt confusing that Obama would sponsor two bills that have such similar aims, but with quite different end goals.

To attain these tough targets, Mr. Obama would like to see a national cap-and-trade system, similar to the one recently announced in Ontario and Quebec. The government would auction off all of the emissions permits, forcing companies to pay for all of the carbon they emit. The revenue generated from the permits, estimated to be between $30 billion and $50 billion would be used to develop green technology and to scale up its use across the country.

Obama is a supporter of coal-to-liquid technology, which, while originally drawing skepticism, is now accepted is a viable method to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming. As well, Mr. Obama is a big supporter of ethanol production in the US to cut the use of traditional fossil fuels. By 2022 he hopes to see 36 billion gallons of biofuels used in the US, rising to 60 billion gallons by 2030.

Senator Obama would like to see a quarter of all US electricity to be generated by renewable sources by 2020, and to set an example for the rest of the country, he believes the federal government should get 30% of the electricity from renewables by 2020.

Other highlights of Obama’s proposed environmental policy include:

calling for all US buildings to be carbon neutral by 2030

a drop in oil consumption in the US by 35% at minimum by 2030

improving energy efficiency by 50% nationwide by 2030

phasing out incandescent light bulbs in favor of energy saving bulbs by 2014

Most recently, as both John McCain and Hillary Clinton have advocated a summer tax holiday on gas, Mr. Obama has stayed the course by opposing such measures, calling it poor environmental and economic policy.

Certainly all of this sounds impressive, and for the most part it is. One area of concern, however, is his staunch support for biofuels and ethanol. There is without a doubt and big future in biofuel and they will play a big role in fighting global warming, but the current US policy of heavily subsiding ethanol does more harm than good to the environment. The vast majority of US ethanol is derived from corn, which is one of the most inefficient ways to produce ethanol and is only able to stay in operation with the help of government money. With improved technology, biofuels in America can be part of the solution to global warming, but for now we strongly oppose the use of corn-based ethanol in the United States.