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

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Decision Making in the Real WorldNCSE 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

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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 WorldA New View of the
StatesClean 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 USOver 188
Million People in 26 States(64 of the US
Population)

State 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

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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
  concentrationhas reached heights never before
  dreamt of in the past, we have come suddenly to
  realize how heavy a price we have paidin the
  growth of organizations, particularly government,
  so large and powerful that individual effort and
  importance seem lost and in loss of the values
  ofcommunity and local diversity that found their
  nurture in the smaller towns and rural areas of
  AmericaBigness, 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 actTherefore the time has comewhen 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
• LMilford_at_cleanegroup.org
• [phone]