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By Catharine Richert September 3, 2009
Back to Require 25 percent renewable energy by 2025

A Renewable Portfolio Standard by any other name smells as sweet

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama made big promises about expanding the use of renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal.
 
Specifically, he wanted to create a Renewable Portfolio Standard requiring that 25 percent of electricity come from renewable fuels by 2025.
 
He's making progress.
 
Buried in the cap-and-trade bill passed by the House on June 26, 2009, is a provision that would require some utility companies to produce at least 20 percent of their electricity from renewable resources and electricity savings by 2020. That's a smaller goal than Obama promised on the campaign trail, but the bill also promises big increases in renewable fuel use five years sooner than his initial pledge.

While the legislation does not call the plan a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard, it has the exact same effect: to increase renewable power.
 
Currently, it's up to the states to adopt a standard; there are 24 states plus the District of Columbia that have RPS policies in place, according to the Energy Department Web site. Yet environmental activists have longed for a national mandate.

Other legislators have introduced similar versions of a national mandate, including Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, who wrote a bill that would, like the cap-and-trade legislation, require 20 percent of all energy come from renewables by 2020.

So far, it looks like Obama has laid the groundwork to follow through on this promise, but the debate over the cap-and-trade bill is far from over; the Senate has yet to tackle climate change legislation, so the language could still change. For now we rate this one In the Works.

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