Decision Making In The Real World

Decision Making in the Real World NCSE 6th Annual National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment

States in the Lead: Clean Energy in the U.S. Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, Washington, DC January 27, 2006 Lewis Milford Clean Energy Group

Historic Transition in Clean Energy Led by States 1997: A Blank Slate on Clean Energy       

No RPS No State Funds No Climate Negotiations Threats to EE Programs No Kyoto Protocol Little State Level Action Opposition to Restructuring Efforts

2006: State Level Revolution on Energy       

Democratized Decision-Making Beyond price regulation Loosening of monopoly utility grip State Environmental, Economic Development Policy National Stalemate Energy Independence Price volatility

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2006 – A New World: A New View of the States Clean Energy Funds (15)

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States with Fuel Cell/Hydrogen Programs (16 total)

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States with Renewable Portfolio Standards (20 total)

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States Developing Carbon Trading (13 Total)

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Real Clean Energy Policy in the US Over 188 Million People in 26 States (64% of the US Population)

26State Funds, Fuel Cells and Hydrogen, RPS , and Carbon Trading

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Historical Role of States  Areas of competence:

federal (redistributive) vs. state (developmental)  Erie Canal to stem cells  States: historical locus for technology innovation  Clean energy resurgence consistent with American historical trends 8

Decentralized Technology Innovation  Beyond moon shot      

approach Focus on innovation barriers Bottoms up learning Experimental Nonpartisan Regional clusters Not merely DC models

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Future Implications?  State and regional primacy  Federal lack of consensus  Long Progressive Energy Era  Federal support not preemption  Think through new strategic

implications: – State / International cooperation – Technology partnerships – Federal devolution (tax, grants, economic deficit) – Distributed learning models – Finance partnerships

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Robert F. Kennedy and Local Diversity  “Even as the drive towards bigness [and] concentration…has

reached heights never before dreamt of in the past, we have come suddenly to realize how heavy a price we have paid… in [the] growth of organizations, particularly government, so large and powerful that individual effort and importance seem lost; and in loss of the values of…community and local diversity that found their nurture in the smaller towns and rural areas of America…Bigness, loss of community, organizations and society grown far past the human scale – these are the besetting sins of the twentieth century, which threaten to paralyze our capacity to act…Therefore the time has come…when we must actively fight the bigness and overconcentration, and seek instead to bring the engines of government, of technology, of the economy, fully under the control of our citizens.” -Kennedy at Worthington, Minn., Sept 17, 1966, in Guthman and Allen, RFK: Collected Speeches, pp.211-212.

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Contact Information Lewis Milford Clean Energy Group www.cleanegroup.org [email protected] (802) 223-2554

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