This Powerful Democrat Linked to Fossil Fuels Will Craft the US Climate Plan
This front-page story for the New York Times features commentary by RFF President and CEO Richard Newell.
But the most powerful climate mechanism in the budget bill — and the one that Mr. Manchin intends to reshape — is a $150 billion program designed to replace most of the nation’s coal- and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear power over the next decade. Known as the Clean Electricity Performance Program, it would pay utilities to ratchet up the amount of power they produce from zero-emissions sources, and fine those that don’t....
“This policy is an essential foundation for rapidly reducing emissions in the most polluting sectors of the economy,” said Richard Newell, president of Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan energy and environment research organization.