National Mission on Climate and Energy

Obama Vows To Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

Goal is to pass and sign comprehensive energy and climate legislation

WASHINGTON, June 23 - Given the emotional reserve of a man whose aides once referred to as "no drama Obama," the president is getting pretty fired up about energy. On Wednesday President Obama concluded an all hands cabinet meeting at the White House by publicly declaring again his resolve to develop a "new energy strategy that the American people desperately want."

"It is time for us to move to a clean energy future," the president said, adding that "the entire cabinet here recognizes, with all the other stuff that they're doing, that if we get energy right,  an awful lot of things can happen as a consequence."

The unscripted outburst came eight days after the president delivered a formal Oval Office summons for a "national mission" to pursue cleaner sources of energy and new practices that limited carbon emissions. The president's "national mission" speech, in turn, followed five days after he alerted a bipartisan group of lawmakers and prominent business leaders that he wanted to "move much more aggressively on the energy agenda,"and three weeks after Obama told an audience in Pittsburgh that "the time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future." Not since President Jimmy Carter delivered his famous and perceptive April 1977 address, during which he asserted that solving the energy crisis was the "moral equivalent of war," has an American leader staked so much political credibility on a new national energy policy. Read more »

Senate Climate Action

American Power Act

In May 2010, New England Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman introduced comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that they say will change the direction of some of the nation’s toughest systemic problems — economic competitiveness, energy security, job loss, and environmental safety. The bill sets a goal of reducing emissions in line with the House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act -- 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. Read more »

CLEAR Act

In December 2009, Senators Maria Cantwell, a Democrat of Washington, and Susan Collins, a Republican of Maine, introduced the Carbon Limits and Energy for American Renewal (CLEAR) Act which would set up a program for cutting carbon emissions by selling "carbon shares" to fuel producers. Most of the resulting revenue would generate checks to every American to compensate increased energy prices. Analysts say the bill would reduce emissions 1-5 percent by 2020. Read more »

Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

In September 2009, Democratic Senators Barbara Boxer of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts introduced the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, and 821-page proposal to reduce carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by mid-century.  The bill includes significant public investment in clean energy research, as well as provisions to generate electricity from natural gas and nuclear power and support carbon capture and storage research. Read more »

House Climate Action

American Clean Energy and Security Act

On June 26, 2009, the House of Representatives passed a sweeping climate and energy bill, the first time a U.S. chamber of Congress has passed a bill that sets mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions (17 percent reductions by 2020).  In his weekly address a day after the vote, President Obama said the legislation was "historic" and would "open the door to a clean energy economy and a better future for America."  Read more »