Title: Decision Making in the Real World NCSE 6th Annual National Conference on Science, Policy and the Env
1Decision 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
2Historic 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
32006 A New WorldA New View of the
StatesClean Energy Funds (15)
4States with Fuel Cell/Hydrogen Programs(16 total)
5States with Renewable Portfolio Standards(20
total)
6States Developing Carbon Trading(13 Total)
7Real 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
26
8Historical 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
9Decentralized Technology Innovation
- Beyond moon shot approach
- Focus on innovation barriers
- Bottoms up learning
- Experimental
- Nonpartisan
- Regional clusters
- Not merely DC models
10Future 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
11Robert 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.
12Contact Information
- Lewis Milford
- Clean Energy Group
- www.cleanegroup.org
- LMilford_at_cleanegroup.org
- (802) 223-2554