Dive Brief:
- Presidential hopeful Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland, has proposed an ambitious clean energy plan that would call for the United States to use all renewable sources by 2050.
- If elected, the Democratic candidate said he would call for federal legislation capping carbon emissions from all sources, with proceeds from permits returned to lower- and middle-class families, and invested in job growth strategies.
- O'Malley, who MSNBC points out is Catholic, tied his proposal to Pope Francis' recent call to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Dive Insight:
If you thought President Obama's Clean Power Plan had sent the utility industry into a state of panic, then O'Malley's proposal will get your attention. The candidate wants 100% renewable power for the United States within 35 years, and said if he's elected he would enact a slew of anti-fossil fuel measures on his first day in office.
“On Day One, I would reject projects like Keystone XL, deny new permits for drilling in Alaska, Antarctica, and off our coasts, and increase royalties and emissions fees for fossil fuel companies currently drilling on federal lands, investing the proceeds in jobs and skills training,” he wrote in his energy agenda.
O'Malley also said he would direct the federal government to make significant changes to its energy consumption, including requiring the federal fleet to be subject to low- or zero-emissions purchasing agreements.
“Our federal fleet of 250,000 vehicles consumes more than $450 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel every year. Fuel costs saved should be reinvested in clean energy deployment and jobs,” he wrote.
His plan also calls for directing the Environmental Protection Agency to take “aggressive action to limit greenhouse gases, expanding rules to other large sources of emissions beyond power plants” and to adopt a zero-tolerance policy for methane leaks from oil and gas production.
O'Malley's plan also calls for doubling energy efficiency within 15 years, retrofitting federal buildings to the highest efficiency standards, and requiring new federal buildings to be energy net-zero.
"The federal government owns and manages nearly 900,000 buildings, more than any other entity," he wrote. "And building retrofits out-perform investments in new gas and oil exploration as a form of job creation or economic stimulus by 3 to 1."
His plan also calls for supporting a Clean Energy Financing Authority to "facilitate clean energy infrastructure projects, efforts to increase efficiency, and resiliency upgrades in communities nationwide. I would also require all federally funded infrastructure projects to meet climate resiliency standards."
In a column first published in USA Today, O'Malley wrote that “we have come a long way as a nation in making ourselves more energy independent. Now is the time to take this progress to the next level — the future of our country and our planet depends on it.”
He also tied his energy policy to Pope Francis' own call to care for the environment. In an encyclical published June 18 — the same day as O'Malley's USA Today column — the Pope wrote of “a very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming. … most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases released mainly as a result of human activity.”
