Roger Ballentine, president of Green Strategies, points out the flaws in the key planks of the CLEAN Future Act proposal, introduced in January by House Democrats, aimed at achieving “net-zero emissions from the electricity sector” through the use of a Clean Energy Standard (CES), which Democrats will likely pass this year ahead of the election.
The proposed legislation promotes garbage incineration and hurts recycling.
- According to the Environmental Protection Agency, burning municipal solid waste (MSW) emits nearly as much CO2 per unit of energy as coal—and almost twice as much as burning natural gas. This is not the way to get to net-zero.
- Incentivizing the burning of our garbage also undercuts incentives for waste reduction and hurts the recycling sector—and at a very bad time. The U.S. recycling industry is in crisis.