Policy: Where do you get the Energy?

So I've been trying to get to Energy policy for week now. But I'm a bit caught up on other things in life (just barely) so here we go. I'm going to try to fit in the last looks at policy in the last few day before the final debate! (Assuming McCain even cares to talk policy at the next debate.) In case you're interested,

Much of the following is taken from candidate websites: Barackobama.com and JohnMcCain.com. Also you can get more info at the NY Times' site.

OIL AND NATURAL GAS

Obama:

• Wants to eliminate our current imports from the Middle East and Venezuela within 10 years
  
• Prioritize the Construction of the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline. Obama will work with stakeholders to facilitate construction of the pipeline. Not only is this pipeline critical to our energy security, it will create thousands of new jobs.
• Swap Oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Cut Prices. With oil prices doubling in the past year, Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we have an economic emergency that requires a limited, responsible swap of light oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) for heavy crude oil to help bring down prices at the pump.
• A "Use it or Lose It" Approach to Existing Oil and Gas Leases. Obama and Biden will require oil companies to develop the 68 million acres of land (over 40 million of which are offshore) which they have already leased and are not drilling on.
• Oppose drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and lifting the federal ban on new offshore oil exploration.
• Establish a process for early identification of any infrastructure obstacles/shortages or possible federal permitting process delays to drilling in the Bakken Shale formation, the Barnett shale formation, and the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
• Enact a Windfall Profits Tax on excessive oil company profits to Provide a $1,000 Emergency Energy Rebate to American Families. Would use some of the money to pay for his middle-class tax cut, for people earning less than $75,000 a year, and for eliminating federal income taxes on elderly citizens who make less than $50,000 a year.
• Crack Down on Excessive Energy Speculation. Obama and Biden will close energy industry market loopholes and increase transparency to prevent traders from unfairly lining their pockets, while driving up oil prices at the expense of the American people.

McCain:

• Lift the current federal moratorium on drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf, which stands in the way of energy exploration and production. We have trillions of dollars worth of oil and gas reserves in the U.S. at a time we are exporting hundreds of billions of dollars a year overseas to buy energy.
• Keep more of our dollars here in the U.S., lessen our foreign dependency, increase our domestic supplies, and reduce our trade deficit - 41% of which is due to oil imports. John McCain proposes to cooperate with the states and the Department of Defense in the decisions to develop these resources.
• Promote and expand the use of our domestic supplies of natural gas. Within the United States we have tremendous reserves of natural gas. The Outer Continental Shelf alone contains 77 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.
• Supported the ban on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 2000. Sarah Palin does not support the ban.
  
• Reform the laws and regulations governing the oil futures market, so that they are just as clear and effective as the rules applied to stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments. Congress already has investigations underway to examine this kind of wagering in our energy markets, unrelated to any kind of productive commerce, because it can distort the market, drive prices beyond rational limits, and put the investments and pensions of millions of Americans at risk.
  
• Does not support a windfall profits tax. A windfall profits tax on the oil companies will ultimately result in increasing our dependence on foreign oil and hinder investment in domestic exploration.
  

CLEAN COAL

Clean coal is an oxymoronic umbrella term used in the promotion of the use of coal as an energy source by emphasizing methods being developed to reduce its environmental impact. These efforts include chemically washing minerals and impurities from the coal, gasification (see also IGCC), treating the flue gases with steam to remove sulfur dioxide, and carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the flue gas. These methods and the technology used are described as clean coal technology. Major politicians and the coal industry use the term "clean coal" to describe technologies designed to enhance both the efficiency and the environmental acceptability of coal extraction, preparation and use,[1] with no specific quantitative limits on any emissions, particularly carbon dioxide.

Obama:

• Enter into public private partnerships to develop five "first-of-a-kind" commercial scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology.
• Would consider banning new coal plants without "clean coal" technologies.
  
• Sponsored a bill with subsidies for development of liquid coal but later said he would support subsidies only if the fuel could be produced with 20 percent lower emissions than gasoline.

McCain:

• Commit $2 Billion Annually To Advancing Clean Coal Technologies. Coal produces the majority of our electricity today. Some believe that marketing viable clean coal technologies could be over 15 years away. John McCain believes that this is too long to wait, and we need to commit significant federal resources to the science, research and development that advance this critical technology. Once commercialized, the U.S. can then export these technologies to countries like China that are committed to using their coal - creating new American jobs and allowing the U.S. to play a greater role in the international green economy. Says coal-to-liquid may be viable if carbon capture and pollution control technology advances.

NUCLEAR POWER

Obama:

• Cites cost and safety concerns, but has not ruled out nuclear power as part of the energy mix.

McCain:

• Construct 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030 with the goal of eventually constructing 100 new plants. Nuclear power is a proven, zero-emission source of energy, and it is time we recommit to advancing our use of nuclear power. Currently, nuclear power produces 20% of our power, but the U.S. has not started construction on a new nuclear power plant in over 30 years. China, India and Russia have goals of building a combined total of over 100 new plants and we should be able to do the same.
  

ETHANOL, BIOFUELS, WIND, SOLAR

Obama:

• Support a goal of 20% renewable energy by 2020. We have vast potential in this country to produce clean renewable energy and reduce our reliance on dwindling domestic natural gas reserves. The investment certainty provided by a significant RPS will encourage innovation, bring down the costs of renewable power, encourage necessary investment in new transmission, inspire new domestic industries, and strengthen rural economies.
• Set benchmarks for production so that more companies will invest in production and create distribution facilities where the average consumer can access biofuels for cars designed to run on them.
  
• Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.

• 

  Would require 60 billion gallons of biofuels to be produced in the U.S. each year by 2030.
• Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.Create the 5-E (Energy Efficiency, Environmental Education and Employment) Disconnected Youth Service Corps. This program will directly engage disconnected and disadvantaged youth in energy efficiency and environmental service opportunities to strengthen their communities while also providing them with practical skills and experience in important career fields of expected high-growth employment. The program will engage private sector employers and unions to provide apprenticeship opportunities.
• Devote significant resources from a permit auction toward accelerating the development and deployment of low carbon technologies and addressing the economic challenges imposed on key industrial sectors.

McCain:

• Issue a Clean Car Challenge to the automakers of America, in the form of a single and $5,000 tax credit for each and every customer who buys a zero carbon emission car, encouraging automakers to be first on the market with these cars in order to capitalize on the consumer incentives. For other vehicles, a graduated tax credit will apply so that the lower the carbon emissions, the higher the tax credit.
• Establish a $300 million prize should be awarded for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars. That battery should deliver a power source at 30 percent of the current costs.
• Call on automakers to make a more rapid and complete switch to Flex Fuel Vehicles. American automakers have committed to make 50 percent of their cars FFVs by 2012.
• Believes alcohol-based fuels hold great promise as both an alternative to gasoline and as a means of expanding consumers' choices.
• Eliminate mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol and prevent the development of market-based solutions which would provide us with better options for our fuel needs.
• Effectively Enforce Existing CAFE Standards--the mileage requirements that automobile manufacturers' cars must meet. Some carmakers ignore these standards, pay a small financial penalty, and add it to the price of their cars.


• Establish a permanent tax credit equal to 10 percent of wages spent on R&D. A permanent credit will provide an incentive to innovate and remove uncertainty. At a time when our companies need to be more competitive, we need to provide a permanent incentive to innovate, and remove the uncertainty now hanging over businesses as they make R&D investment decisions.
• Encourage the market for alternative, low carbon fuels such as wind, hydro and solar power with an even-handed system of tax credits that will remain in place until the market transforms sufficiently to the point where renewable energy no longer merits the taxpayers' dollars. According to the Department of Energy, wind could provide as much as one-fifth of electricity by 2030. The U.S. solar energy industry continued its double-digit annual growth rate in 2006. To develop these and other sources of renewable energy will require that we rationalize the current patchwork of temporary tax credits that provide commercial feasibility.
  

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

What is Cap-and-Trade?

A cap-and-trade system harnesses human ingenuity in the pursuit of alternatives to carbon-based fuels. Market participants are allotted total permits equal to the cap on greenhouse gas emissions. If they can invent, improve, or acquire a way to reduce their emissions, they can sell their extra permits for cash. The profit motive will coordinate the efforts of venture capitalists, corporate planners, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists on the common motive of reducing emissions.

Obama:

• Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.The Obama-Biden cap-and-trade policy will require all pollution credits to be auctioned, and proceeds will go to investments in a clean energy future, habitat protections, and rebates and other transition relief for families.
• Increase fuel efficiency standards by 4% per year while providing $4 billion for domestic automakers to retool their manufacturing facilities in America to produce these vehicles.
• Create a new $7,000 tax credit for purchasing advanced vehicles.

• 

  Lift the 60,000-per-manufacturer cap on buyer tax credits to encourage more Americans to buy ultra-efficient vehicles, and encourage automakers to make fuel efficient hybrid vehicles.
  
• Offer domestic automakers either assistance shouldering their health care legacy costs in exchange for investing 50 percent of the savings into technology to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles or generous tax incentives for retooling assembly plants.
• Put 1 million plug-in hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
• Establish a National Low Carbon Fuel Standard to reduce the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of passenger vehicle fuels sold in the U.S. by 10 percent in 2020 and require additional reductions of 1% annually thereafter.
• Weatherize one million homes annually. Obama and Biden will make a national commitment to weatherize at least one million low-income homes each year for the next decade, which can reduce energy usage across the economy and help moderate energy prices for all.
• Set an aggressive energy efficiency goal -- to reduce electricity demand 15 percent from projected levels by 2020.
• Re-engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) -- the main international forum dedicated to addressing the climate problem. They will also create a Global Energy Forum of the world's largest emitters to focus exclusively on global energy and environmental issues.

McCain:

• "Green" the federal government. The federal government is the largest electricity consumer on earth and occupies 3.3 billion square feet of space worldwide. By applying a higher efficiency standard to new buildings leased or purchased or retrofitting existing buildings, we can save taxpayers substantial money in energy costs, and move the construction market in the direction of green technology.
• Move the United States toward electricity grid and metering improvements to save energy. John McCain will work to reduce red tape to allow a serious investment to upgrade our national grid to meet the demands of the 21st century - which will include a capacity to charge the electric cars that will one day fill the roads and highways of America. And to save both money and electrical power for our people and businesses, we will also need to deploy SmartMeter technologies. These new meters give customers a more precise picture of their overall energy consumption, and over time will encourage a more cost-efficient use of power.
• Establish a Cap-And-Trade System that would set limits on greenhouse gas emissions while encouraging the development of low-cost compliance options. A climate cap-and-trade mechanism would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and allow entities to buy and sell rights to emit, similar to the successful acid rain trading program of the early 1990s. The key feature of this mechanism is that it allows the market to decide and encourage the lowest-cost compliance options. The cap-and-trade system would encompass electric power, transportation fuels, commercial business, and industrial business - sectors responsible for just under 90 percent of all emissions. Small businesses would be exempt. Initially, participants would be allowed to either make their own GHG reductions or purchase "offsets" - financial instruments representing a reduction, avoidance, or sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions practiced by other activities, such as agriculture - to cover 100 percent of their required reductions. Offsets would only be available through a program dedicated to ensure that all offset GHG emission reductions are real, measured and verifiable. The fraction of GHG emission reductions permitted via offsets would decline over time.
• Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets And Timetables:
• 2012: Return Emissions To 2005 Levels (18 Percent Above 1990 Levels)
• 2020: Return Emissions To 1990 Levels (15 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  
• 2030: 22 Percent Below 1990 Levels (34 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  
• 2050: 60 Percent Below 1990 Levels (66 Percent Below 2005 Levels)
  

Obama's Policy Speech in Lansing in August 2008 on Energy Policy.