From my NYTimes headlines email:
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Bailout (and Buildup)
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
We can’t afford a financial bailout that also isn’t a green buildup — a buildup of a new clean energy industry that strengthens America.
Here is the part that riles me:
But how do we do that without any policy to affect the price signal for gasoline and carbon?
Here are some ideas: First, Washington could impose a national renewable energy standard that would require every utility in the country to produce 20 percent of its power from clean, non-CO2-emitting, energy sources — wind, solar, hydro, nuclear, biomass — by 2025. About half the states already have these in place, but they are all different. It would create a huge domestic pull for renewable energy if we had a uniform national mandate.
Most every environmental economics textbooks explain why uniform national standards are inefficient. Since benefits and costs are regionally different, it makes sense to adopt non-uniform standards -- if standard adopting is a must.
