Idea of the Day: The Stone Soup Clean Energy and Climate Bill

July 26, 2010

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced on July 13 that he plans to bring comprehensive clean energy legislation to the floor of the U.S. Senate this week. According to Politico, “Reid confirmed the bill will have four parts: an oil spill response; a clean-energy and job-creation title based on work done in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; a tax package from the Senate Finance Committee; and a section that deals with greenhouse gas emissions from the electric utility industry.”

The approach could be akin to the children’s story “Stone Soup.” No villager alone had the ingredients to make a hearty meal for soldiers passing through their town, but each brought an ingredient and together they created a community soup. By the same token, no existing Senate energy bill has all of the needed components, but it is possible to craft a comprehensive clean energy and global warming bill that would actually achieve Reid’s four goals by combining the most effective provisions from a number of existing bills.

Senate committees have reviewed or voted on many of the existing bills. Combining their provisions into a single bill should make it easier to draft the bill and build support for the overall package. Think of it as “The Stone Soup Clean Energy Bill.”

For more on this topic please see:

• The Stone Soup Clean Energy and Climate Bill by Daniel J. Weiss, Susan Lyon, and Tina Ramos