House Democrats Unveil Plan for 100% Clean Energy by 2050

House Democrats on Jan. 8 released ideas for future legislation aimed at getting the U.S. to 100% clean energy by 2050 and said they’d work to build support for it in the months ahead.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) called the ideas a framework for a bill that will be called the Climate Leadership and Environmental Action for Our Nation’s Future, or CLEAN Act. The bill hasn’t been introduced, and Pallone said draft text of the legislation would be released around the end of January.

It’s unclear whether such far-reaching climate legislation can pass the House, where the Democrats are in control, but it would be dead on arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate. Pallone and other backers said they would be open to changes in the bill to try to get broader support.

The framework includes a federal clean energy standard that would mandate utilities across the U.S. obtain 100% of their power from clean energy sources by 2050. But clean energy under their plan would include natural gas and coal if they met certain emissions standards.

Clean Energy Standard

The Energy and Commerce’s clean energy standard would require that utilities meet an annual carbon intensity measure that is below 0.82 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per megawatt hour.

In practice, that would mean solar and wind energy would receive full credit toward the clean energy standard, and coal and natural gas power could be eligible for a partial credit if they meet the 0.82 metric ton limit through efficiency, carbon capture and storage, and other methods to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The framework cites recommendations by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the world cut greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by mid-century as part of efforts to avoid the worst impacts of climate change in the decades ahead.

The House Democrats’ plan also calls for the Environmental Protection Agency to get additional authority, including the responsibility to review other federal agencies and departments to make sure that they are on track to get net emissions to zero by 2050.

Pallone was joined at the announcement by Reps. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Environment and Climate Change Subcommittee; Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), chairman of the Energy Subcommittee; and a half-dozen other Democrats.