From the Dispatch

Clean Energy Options: In the Wake of the Oil Spill, Energy Alternatives That Will Create Jobs

Fabiola Carrion — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:00:58 -0400

With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States produces 25 percent of greenhouse gases, making it the second largest emitter in the world after China. The American public is well-aware of this issue; according to a Pew Research Center Poll, three-fourths of Americans described climate change as a serious problem. Since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, support for off-shore drilling has waned substantially and more Americans want to look for clean energy policies that will avert more ecological disasters. Pew has also noted that the American public overwhelmingly supports (by 87 percent) renewable sources like wind and solar power.

Accompanying this environmental crisis is one of the worst economic periods in the nation's modern history. Overall unemployment rates are just below 10 percent and almost all states are dealing with budget shortfalls. Progressive state legislators, nevertheless, continue to take major steps to lessen our dependence on oil, create jobs that remain in this country, diversify our energy sources, and ensure that these sources are transmitted and distributed through a reliable electrical system.

States have taken an important – and often primary – role in setting the environmental and energy agenda in the United States. A review of state policies, federal policies based on state models, and federal policies where state leaders play a key role in implementation demonstrates that state actions will have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 536 million metric tons per year by 2020. As Progressive States Network has described in previous Stateside Dispatches, increasing the number of renewable energy systems reduces greenhouse gas emissions, relieves grid congestion, creates jobs, and provides their owners with surplus energy to sell back to the market.

In this Dispatch, PSN will examine clean energy options that contribute to a green economy, including evaluating the great strides that energy supply alternatives have created in the states that have enacted policies that promote them. We will explain how states have established Renewable Portfolio Standards and how these have created the demand for innovative investment, as well as how to promote new sources of renewable energy, including creative financial mechanisms, multi-state agreements, and the upgrade of an electrical grid that will better transmit energy from these intermittent sources. And for states looking for new job creation strategies, one key fact is that the production, installment and maintenance of renewable energy sources create sustainable jobs.

Federal Support for State Action: The 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) assisted continued action by states with the inclusion of a wide array of provisions to spur clean energy generation and energy efficiency. A special package of $85 billion was allocated towards energy and transportation related spending, dedicating $21 billion toward incentives for wind, solar, and other renewable energy manufacturers. ARRA also provides more than $30 billion for direct spending on clean energy programs, including $11 billion to modernize the electricity grid, $2.5 billion for research into renewable energy, and $6 billion for state and local efforts to achieve energy efficiency. In addition to all of these national efforts, ARRA allocates $3.1 billion to the Department of Energy’s State Energy Program, which distributes funds to help state governments improve energy efficiency and expand the use of renewable energy in their states. According to Environment America, programs that have been funded by ARRA are expected to reduce emissions by approximately 10 million metric tons per year by 2020.

Resources
Environment America - America on the Move: State Leadership in the Fight Against Global Warming, and What it Means for the World
American Clean Energy and Security Act
Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

Table of Contents:

- Renewable Energy Sources in the States

- Renewable Portfolio Standards: One Key to Promoting Alternative Energy Production

- Putting a Price on Carbon: Regional Greenhouse Gas Emission Agreements

- Clean Energy Financing Options

- Networking the Green Economy: Creating Jobs and Improving the Transmission of Renewable Energy Sources

- Conclusion: A Greener Economy Drives Job Creation

Renewable Energy Sources in the States

Renewable energy sources (used interchangeably here as alternative energy sources) include solar, wind, geothermal, biofuels, geothermal, conventional hydroelectric, and biomass waste. The production of renewable energy largely depends on the geographic location of these resources, the availability and location of infrastructure, and demand for energy. As such, the two most common barriers for the development of alternative energy sources are (1) cost, and (2) lack of infrastructure.

Solar Energy: Pike Research forecasts that the United States will become the largest market for small solar installations by 2011, surpassing Germany, the best known solar energy producer in the world. Unlike fossil fuels, solar energy is clean, safe and everywhere. With higher demand, solar energy is costing less. Thanks to this rapid growth, it is believed that the US can reach the goal of obtaining 10 percent energy consumption from the sun by 2030. One of the drawbacks of solar energy, however, is that it is intermittent and consequently not always available to match demand. It is therefore imperative that we use technologies that can measure the various levels of power that solar energy can generate and transmit them according to on- and off-peak times.

Wind Energy: Wind energy has become the fastest growing source of electricity in the United States. In fact, in 2008, the US surpassed Germany to reclaim the world’s leadership in installed wind power capacity. And in 2009, the wind industry increased by 39 percent. Now, almost two percent of our electricity is coming from wind turbines. Further, about half of components used in wind farms are now made in the US, compared with 25 percent in 2004, meaning that jobs in this sector have increased rapidly.

Thanks to our transition into wind generation, the US Department of Energy attributes approximately 17 million metric tons of the decline in carbon dioxide emissions during 2009 to expanded production of zero-emission electricity compared to 2008 levels. Environment America also concludes that the increase in renewable energy production since 2004 could be assumed to have reduced emissions in 2009 by roughly 44 million metric tons. Texas is currently the nation’s top wind producer, with a total of 9,410 megawatts, about three times more than the second-largest producer, Iowa. They are followed by California, Washington, and Minnesota.

On their own, solar and wind power can significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we normally emit, and together, they can complement each other. Under the right conditions, solar generated energy is at its highest output during the hours when wind resources are least likely to be available.

Resources
Center for Social Inclusion - Solar Energy Generation at the Community Level: Briefing Paper Five of Black, Brown and Green
The New York Times - Wind Power Grows 39% for the Year
US Department of Energy - Short‐Term Energy Outlook Supplement: Understanding the Decline in Carbon Dioxide Emissions in 2009

Renewable Portfolio Standards: One Key to Promoting Alternative Energy Production

A renewable electricity standard (also known as renewable portfolio standard) requires utilities to develop renewable energy resources as part of their energy portfolio. In other words, an RES (or RPS) requires utilities to obtain a certain share of electricity they deliver to consumers from renewable resources. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have adopted minimum standards requiring that a percentage of their electricity come from renewable energy. Five additional states (Florida, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia) have set voluntary renewable portfolio standards.

Thanks to these standards, about three percent of power generated in the United States originates from renewable energy sources. The Department of Energy attributes state laws as the force behind the use of renewable sources. In concurrence, research by the North American Electricity Reliability Council shows that over 50 percent of the increase in renewable energy capacity occurred in states with mandatory Renewable Portfolio Standards.

These efforts will reduce global warming pollution by 79 million metric tons nationwide. Environment America calculates that 119 million metric tons will be reduced by 2020 thanks to RES policies and the reductions in electricity consumption that will result from other related policies.

Renewable Energy Standards Vary from State to State: The mix of resources eligible for credit varies greatly from one state to the next: some include “carve outs” for particular technologies (most often solar power), and some allow out-of-state resources to count on an equal basis with in-state resources through credit trading. Each state has designed its RES to account for a range of state-specific conditions and policy priorities. These include available wind, solar and other renewable energy potential in a state, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating other environmental externalities associated with fossil fuels, and lowering electricity costs to consumers. Other goals include diversifying the energy mix to protect against potential fuel interruptions and attracting wind and solar farms, product manufacturers, and research and development facilities to promote economic development and job creation.

The first renewable energy standard was adopted in Iowa in 1983. Massachusetts, Nevada, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey and Wisconsin followed suit in the late 1990s, all enacting standards in the space of a few years. RES spread even more widely in the 2000s, while many states that had been among the first to adopt the policy updated their legislation to enact more aggressive renewable energy goals and to ease implementation of the policy.

Even when states have already implemented renewable portfolio standards, they are still seeking to expand them. States have expanded compliance dates, raised compliance targets, or added carve-outs for specific technologies.

Oregon’s HB 3039, enacted into law in 2009 two years after the renewable portfolio standard was first signed, includes a solar photovoltaic standard within the state renewable portfolio standard. Oregon state legislators continue to seek to amend existing laws to increase RPS requirements over the years.
In 2002, Nevada enacted an aggressive renewable portfolio standard that required that 15 percent of all electricity generated be derived from renewable resources by 2013. In June 2005, Nevada raised the requirements of the RPS by 20 percent of sales by 2015.
Virginia also increased the state’s renewable portfolio standard to 15 percent during the 2009 legislative session.

We previously highlighted Colorado's leadership in clean energy legislation, including its recent law to expand its renewable energy standards. In one of the most far-reaching environmental initiatives in the country, HB 1001 requires 30 percent of large utilities' electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2020. In detail, utilities must supply at least 12 percent of their retail electric sales from such sources from 2011 to 2014, 20 percent from 2015 to 2019, and 30 percent for 2020 and beyond. Three percent of this standard must be met by local solar power, leading to the construction and installation of 100,000 solar rooftops, panels, and turbines.

The Undeniable Success of a Renewable Energy Standard: Seventy percent of the fastest growing energy supply -- wind power -- was generated in the US thanks to a renewable energy standard. Between 2004 and 2009, state mandates for renewable energy have averted the release of approximately 44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution in 2009. By requiring utilities to invest in renewable energy, states have established policies that have leveled the playing field for clean energy sources to compete with traditional fossil fuel.

Experts project that the manufacturing renewable sector has the potential to employ many more Americans in green jobs. Of the 18 states that have both renewable portfolio and energy efficiency standards in place, 11 states (61 percent) had more jobs in the clean energy economy than the national average. Similarly, in 12 of those 18 states, clean energy jobs made up a larger share of all jobs when compared to the US average.

Resources
Progressive States Network - Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) Advance in the States
Center on Wisconsin Strategy, the Workforce Alliance, the Apollo Alliance - Greener Pathways: Jobs and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy
Stateline - The Rush to Renewables
Center for Social Inclusion - Solar Energy Generation at the Community Level: Briefing Paper Five of Black, Brown and Green
Environment America - America on the Move: State Leadership in the Fight Against Global Warming, and What it Means for the World
Progressive States Network - Colorado Leads Clean Energy Reform
Environment Maryland - Building a Solar Future: Repowering America's Homes, Businesses, and Industry with Solar Energy
Apollo Alliance - As Oil Spill Tragedy Continues, Clean Energy Progress in Missouri and Georgia Points to Hope for the Future
Renewable Energy World - Where the Wind Blows and Sun Shines: A comparative analysis of state renewable energy standards

Putting a Price on Carbon: Regional Greenhouse Gas Emission Agreements

In addition to complying with their own statewide portfolio, twenty-three states are participating in three major regional initiatives seeking to increase renewable energy generation and reduce carbon pollution from power plants that cause global warming. The most famous of these agreements is the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI, composed of 10 Northeastern states: New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

RGGI's 2002 Working Group proposed to keep emissions flat from 2009 to 2015, and then begin to cut the cap by 2.5 percent each following year. By 2018, emissions are expected to be reduced by 10 percent from the program's start date. RGGI holds an auction where the member states sell credits for carbon emissions. The buyers are electric utilities who purchase credits either to be able to emit carbon dioxide or to re-sell those credits to other utilities. Under this cap-and-trade regime, each auction raises on average $80.5 million and in total the auctions have raised $663 million. The money raised in these auctions is supposed to be directed towards projects that promote energy efficiency.

Although some states have used some of the RGGI funds to fill in the gaps of their state's budget, the RGGI still continues to create job opportunities for workers who conduct energy audits and install home weatherization measures. For example, the Center for Ecological Technology, a company that conducts RGGI-funded efficiency efficiency work on behalf of electric utilities has doubled its workforce - from 50 to 100 full-time employees. This increase has also spearheaded the creation of new positions in the IT and customer service departments. Furthermore, thanks to RGGI, carbon dioxide emissions from power plants are below the cap they set. Along with RGGI, the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) has been created to reduce emissions across the region by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Seven US states (Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington) and four Canadian provinces are part of WCI; the program, to be fully implemented by 2015, will cover close to 90 percent of emissions from the states' and provinces' territories. Also in the Midwest, six US states (Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin) and a Canadian province have joined to form the Midwest Greenhouse Gas Accord in order to reduce their emissions. MGGA's Advisory Group recently published its final recommendations, setting an emissions reduction target of 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.

Altogether, 23 states, accounting for half of the US population, are involved in greenhouse gas reduction accords.

Other Ways to Put a Price on Carbon: The most straightforward, and many would argue transparent, method to curtail carbon emissions might be to pay precisely for producing them. A carbon tax is aimed at taxing the actual emissions of carbon dioxide from energy producers. Instituting a tax provides the certainty of compliance, and has been successfully implemented in several countries, including Norway, Sweden and Germany. Carbon tax legislation has been introduced in US cities like Portland, Oregon and Boulder and Aspen in Colorado. According to the Oregon plan, builders that do not construct an energy efficient home must pay a fee. By the same token, the plan gives developers cash rewards if they save at least 45 percent more energy than the Oregon building code would require. The Boulder plan charges on the number of kilo-watt hours used, directing the profits to renewable energy and energy efficiency programs. The idea of taxing for carbon emissions has received a lot of support from environmental and labor activists, and even from Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson.

Please click image above to view a full chart of state Mandatory Renewable Energy Standards for 2010 from RenewableEnergyWorld.com.

Resources
Stateline - The RGGI raid: how cap-and-trade revenues went to fix state budgets
Progressive States Network - Bold Plan for Carbon Tax Introduced in Portland, OR
Environmental Protection - First RGGI 2010 Auction Yields $87.9 M for Member States
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Western Climate Initiative
Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord

Renewable Energy Financing Options

Through public bonds, pension funds, state-managed investment pools, and leveraging federal dollars, states can direct investment dollars into alternative energy production. These financial incentives are being applied over a long period of time to establish consistent and efficient programs and create a stable market.

Federal and State Funding: Federal monies, principally through the ARRA, are being directed towards bonds that enable local and states to finance renewable energy projects. The US Department of Agriculture, for instance, operates a loan guarantee program for agricultural adoption of renewable energy. States are taking full advantage of the federal government's support. Thirty-two of them have combined federal and state funding to provide residential, commercial, and industrial loan financing for the purchase of renewable energy. The following examples paint a good picture on what states are doing with government funding:

In Colorado, SB 31 was enacted in 2009 to create the Clean Technology Discovery Evaluation grant program for the purpose of improving and expanding the development of new clean technology discoveries at higher education research institutions. The state will also allocate $2 million in grants towards renewable from 2009 ARRA funding through the Governor's Energy Office.
Montana also provides direct funding for renewable energy development through grant and loan programs that typically target generation at the scale of residential and commercial buildings. It offers a grant program to subsidize small-scale renewable installations via a state-mandated system benefits fund maintained by the state’s largest private utility. Montana’s revolving fund loans up to $40,000 per renewable project.

Municipal Financing and Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE): A model called Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) financing enables municipalities to use their ability to obtain financing at low interest rates to pay for the upfront cost of installing renewable energy parts in businesses and homes. The financing is recouped through a special assessment on the property owner’s taxes, or in certain cases, their utility bill. In most programs, property owners pay back the costs over a period of 20 years. The tax remains with the property; if a property owner sells the property during the period of financing, the responsibility to pay back is transferred to the new owner. Hence, PACE absolves the homeowner of the risk that they will move out before they receive the full benefits of the system. Two barriers to making energy upgrades are therefore eliminated: (1) the up-front costs, and (2) the question of who pays for ongoing costs for upgrades when properties are sold.

The White House has estimated that if only 15 percent of residential property owners in the US took advantage of PACE related programs, the resulting emissions reductions would contribute to four percent of the savings needed for the US to reach 1990 emissions by 2020. In addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, PACE programs promise to lower energy bills for consumers and create jobs in home weatherization and renewable energy installation. So far, PACE programs have been authorized in 23 states.

Source: Pew Center on Global Climate Change

California enacted AB 811 in 2008 to allow cities and counties to offer PACE financing. Under the California program, property owners seeking funding for energy efficiency improvements must have a clear property title and be current on property taxes and mortgages. Financing may originate from bonds, local government funds, and third-party lenders. Under Minnesota law, loan amounts may not exceed 10 percent of the assessed value of the property and may include costs related to the required energy audit or feasibility study, equipment and labor costs, and performance verification. A recently enacted New York law (AB 40004A) allows counties, towns, cities and villages to offer sustainable energy loan programs that can pay for energy audits, cost-effective, permanent energy efficiency improvements, renewable energy feasibility studies, and the installation of renewable energy systems. The local program determines the sectors eligible for financing, and qualification for the loan is contingent on energy audits or renewable energy feasibility studies that meet New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) or equally stringent standards. Energy efficiency improvements must meet cost-effectiveness criteria as established by NYSERDA. Land-secured financing districts for PACE programs have been created in Florida, Georgia (HB 1388-2010), Hawaii, Louisiana (SB 224-2009), Nevada, Vermont (HB 446-2009), and New Mexico (SB 647-2009).

Also last year, Oregon established the Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Technology loan program to provide state loans for residential and commercial energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. The 100 percent upfront long term, low-interest loans can be paid back on the utility bill. The program is financed through state bonding and private loans.

This year, Maine enacted LD 1717 to implement a loan program through a local ordinance that provides financing for property owners who want to put clean energy improvements in their homes. This legislation is unique in two ways: (1) municipalities will be able to use federal grants or any other funds available for the purpose of funding PACE programs; and (2) PACE assessments will be considered subordinate liens, secondary to mortgages. Further more, Efficiency Maine Trust was directed to promulgate rules for Maine's PACE program, including eligible efficiency improvements and renewable energy installations, standards for underwriting requirements, and truth in lending provisions which are to guide the consumer disclosure that must be included in PACE agreements.

Another eight states have introduced PACE bills in 2010 in their legislatures, including Hawaii (SB 2865 and HB 2643), Missouri (HB 2178, HB 2298 and SB 1037), Michigan (HB 5640), New Jersey (AB 2500), Illinois (SB 2505).

Georgia also approved legislation this year (HB 1388) to help residential and commercial property owners make energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements to their properties through voluntary property assessments.

PACE Programs Under Challenge: Recently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac asserted that because PACE programs' liens take priority over existing mortgages, this poses a risk to lenders and secondary market entities, as well as alter valuations for mortgage-backed securities. Consequently, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and the US Treasury Department have instructed banks to place additional restrictions on home loans to borrowers in jurisdictions that have PACE programs. In response, cities and states have taken action to save PACE.

For instance, the state of California has filed a complaint against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack for blocking PACE programs; California Attorney General Jerry Brown argues that PACE funding is an assessment, not a loan, and that Fannie and Freddie have long accepted local governments' use of assessments in California to finance improvements that serve a public purpose. The city of Babylon in New York will likely follow California's action; its leaders joined more than 50 local workers at a rally last Tuesday to announce the town's plans to sue the FHFA. As these leaders note, programs like those in California actually work to reduce the risk of default by requiring a clean record on property taxes and mortgages. In New York, stringent standards have to be met in order to obtain financing under PACE. And in Maine, the Efficiency Maine Trust is creating standards for underwriting requirements and truth in lending provisions to guide consumer disclosure. Further, more federal money is being allocated to fund and guarantee the success of PACE programs. Last year, the US Department of Energy announced funding for PACE projects and is apportioning $80 million as upfront capital for PACE-type programs. PACE programs can also apply for competitive grants under the Energy Efficiency Conservation Block Grant Program.

Feed-In-Tariffs: One other funding source for renewable energy is where a company that installs and maintains a renewable source device receives a Power Purchase Agreement or Feed-In-Tariff with a customer. Here, the customer pays no upfront costs while the energy provider pays for the entire project including installation, maintenance, and trouble shooting. Also, this relationship guarantees that the installation can take place quickly, the service is predictable, and the rate is at parity with other retail electricity rates. Feed-in tariffs have played a role in the development of Germany’s world-leading solar power industry. In the United States, feed-in-tariffs have been adopted in Vermont and Washington.

The Vermont feed-in-tariff law was designed to ensure that homeowners or businesses receive the same return on equity for their investment. Vermont's legislation bases the tariffs on the cost of generation plus a reasonable profit. Vermont's feed-in tariff program contains the key elements of the successful policies found in Europe: tariffs are differentiated by technology and size; tariffs are set on the cost of generation plus profit; and profit is set by a reasonable rate of return, loan contracts terms, and a regular program review.

Rebate Programs: By providing cash incentives, more homeowners and businesses will install renewable devices and technologies in their buildings. States have taken note of this efficient strategy. Twenty-three of them and the District of Columbia offer rebate programs to promote the installation of renewable energy systems and energy efficiency measures such as solar water heating and photovoltaic systems. We highlight a few of them:

California's Million Solar Roofs Initiative provides grants to homeowners who install solar systems, with the amount of the rebate declining over time to reflect the anticipated declining cost of solar power.

Thanks to ARRA funding, Minnesota offers rebates of $100 to $250 on refrigerators, dishwashers, and clothes washers, and New Jersey residents will be able to receive rebates worth $25 to $ 100 on the purchase of those same items. Similar rebate programs for home appliances exist in Louisiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Net Metering: Net metering allows customers who generate electricity through renewable sources to receive credit for electricity they put on the grid. In other words, net metering customers buy electricity when they need it, use the electricity they produce, and sell any excess to the utility. This provides an incentive for consumers to invest in small renewable generation systems. More than 40 states and the District of Columbia have adopted net metering laws.

Last year, Nebraska's LB 436 was enacted to provide net metering for electricity. It includes one to one credit for energy generated up to the amount used, protection against additional utility charges and fees, protection against unnecessary safety or performance standards, and prohibition of additional liability insurance.
Newly enacted AB 510 in California raises the cap set on the number of homes and businesses that can take advantage of net energy metering. Current law caps the amount of electricity that can be generated under the net metering program to 2.5 percent of a utility’s peak demand. AB 510 raises the net metering cap to 5 percent and will help meet projected demands received under the California Solar Initiative program. The law further allows the rate-making authority to compensate net energy producers for the value of the electricity itself, and the value of the renewable attributes of the electricity. Moreover, net energy producers will receive a bonus if the renewable attributes of the energy production add indefinite or unforeseen benefits. Environmental advocates claim that the law, which was introduced last year but died in committee, finally balances the interests of utilities, customer-generators, and non-participating customers. This is a great win for the more than 50,000 customers, including schools, community colleges, cities and counties and homeowners in California who participate in net metering.
New Jersey has one of the most comprehensive net metering and interconnection laws in the United States. It includes a wide array of renewable sources: solar technologies, wind, fuel cells, geothermal technologies, wave or tidal action, and methane gas from landfills or biomass facilities. This program has been praised for standardizing the interconnection procedures for residential and small-commercial customers, who pay at the end of the each year for every excess Kwh they produce.

Protecting the Ability to Install Renewable Energy Sources: States are also enacting rules to protect access to renewable energy. Last year, Virginia enacted SB 320, which voids covenants that restrict installation of use of any solar energy collection device on private property.

Resources
Progressive States Network - Colorado Leads Clean Energy Reform
The Pew Charitable Trusts - The Clean Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businesses and Investments Across America
The Apollo Alliance - As Oil Spill Tragedy Continues, Clean Energy Progress in Missouri and Georgia Points to Hope for the Future
The White House - Policy Framework for PACE Financing Programs
Environment America – America on the Move
Center for Social Inclusion - Solar Energy Generation at the Community Level: Briefing Paper Five of Black, Brown and Green
Progressive States Network - Green Buildings: Multi-State Agenda Campaign Update
Apollo Alliance - Efforts Underway to Save Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Programs
The White House - Policy Framework for PACE Financing Programs
Center on Wisconsin Strategy, the Workforce Alliance, the Apollo Alliance - Greener Pathways: Jobs and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy
Environment Maryland - Building a Solar Future: Repowering America's Homes, Businesses, and Industry with Solar Energy

Networking the Green Economy: Creating Jobs and Improving the Transmission of Renewable Energy Sources

Renewable sources present unique and serious transmission challenges due to their intermittency (solar and wind) and the remoteness of the site of generation. For renewable energy production to maintain its current rate of growth, it must overcome significant obstacles, including the lack of capacity and connectivity in the regional electrical infrastructure. The only way that we can fully maximize the use of renewable energy sources is by upgrading the current electrical system. With an upgraded, or smart, grid, renewable energy production overcomes significant obstacles including lack of capacity and connectivity. Improving the electric grid will expand the ability of renewable energy and energy conservation to meet the nation’s energy needs.

The smart grid is an aggregate term that refers to a distribution system that allows the flow of information to the consumer and to the utility company through thermostats, Web based programs, appliances, and other devices. Establishing smart grids at the transmission level will enable digital controls and high-voltage transmission lines to transport energy from renewable energy sources. A smart grid improves the management of the distribution and consumption of energy that results in the integration of various sources of renewable energy into our power system. In this manner, it facilitates more efficient energy use and reduces the amount of emissions from harmful greenhouse gases.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act apportioned $4.5 billion on smart grid demonstration projects. Beyond this, $11 billion will be invested in general improvements to the grid, another important step towards a grid that will allow for more flexible and efficient generation and use of power.

Last year, California enacted SB 17/AB 238 to declare that new and modified electric transmission facilities, including the employment of smart grid technologies, are necessary to facilitate the state's energy efficiency goals and renewable portfolio transmission facilities. This is the first smart grid state law in the country, as it promotes the installation of smart meters, data networks and other infrastructure for a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid by — by July 1, 2010. Under this law, the Public Utility Commission is required to report on a yearly basis, starting on Jan. 1, 2011, to the governor and legislature on the progress being made in improvements to the electrical grid.
Vermont and Maryland have each provided funding to study smart metering and/or smart grids, as a means of reducing energy use.
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has teamed with utilities in the states of Washington and Oregon to test new energy technologies designed to improve efficiency and reliability, while at the same time, increasing consumer choice and control.
In North Carolina, 100 Lafayetteville residents and businesses cut energy use an average of 20 percent during a six-month pilot last year. The customers were equipped with software that enabled them to check their energy use from the Internet.

By using applications and devices supported by digital infrastructure, such as broadband and information communication technology, we can build a green economy:continuing our economic growth and creating new jobs while decreasing our energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

Resources
Progressive States Network - Networking the Green Economy: How Broadband and Related Technologies Can Build a Green Economic Future
Progressive States Network - Green Jobs Programs to Drive Economic Recovery
The Apollo Alliance - Make It in America: The Apollo Green Manufacturing Action Plan
Progressive States Network - Networking the Green Economy: How Broadband and Related Technologies Can Build a Green Economic Future

Conclusion: A Greener Economy Drives Job Creation

Nearly six out of ten jobs in the green economy fall specifically in the area of energy generation, which includes jobs responsible for producing clean forms of energy such as wind, solar and geothermal. Jobs responsible for solar power generation dominate this subgroup: 62.5 percent of all energy generation jobs in 2007 were in the solar industry. Jobs in wind power were second overall, making up 9.7 percent of energy generation jobs in 2007, but they grew more rapidly – by 23.5 percent between 1998 and 2007, compared to 19.1 percent growth for solar power jobs during the same period. Since the ARRA was enacted, an estimated 150,000 jobs were saved or created in the construction of solar panels and wind turbines.

Industry sector experts have cited state policies such as renewable portfolio standards as important factors in driving investments, attracting companies and growing new industries and jobs because they help create market demand for clean energy technologies, products, and services. However, without key policies such as renewable electricity standards, the market will be slow to grow. The Union of Concerned Scientists agree; they have estimated that a national RPS requiring 20% in renewable energy sources by 2020 could generate 355,000 jobs across the country. Also by this time, the domestic market for renewable energy supplies is likely to reach $226 billion annually.

Potential Federal Action: While states are still making progress on their own, a stronger federal partner would help. Last year, US Representatives introduced the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which requires that 20 percent of the country’s electricity be generated by renewable energy by 2020. This year, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (also known as the APA) was unveiled in the Senate. The APA includes: a cap and price on greenhouse gas emissions, similar to a cap-and-dividend already considered at the state-level, a target for reducing those emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, and a fee for “carbon leakage” of imports in order to level the playing field between American manufacturers and foreign competitors that emit carbon. Not included in the Senate bill is a national renewable portfolio standard. Although the APA offers support for renewable energy sources, a federal mandate is needed in order to push the remaining 20 states to seriously commit to the use of alternative sources of energy. In the absence of renewable energy standards in the American Power Act, states can and must continue to fill in gap by continuing to mandate the use of renewable energy.

State Policy Program: Whatever the feds ultimately do, states are taking action to ensure that the future is bright -- literally and metaphorically -- for alternative energy production in the United States. With more than half of states having enacted renewable portfolio standards we are well under way to achieving our environmental and economic goals, but much more needs to be done. States should continue to build on their track record of innovation in clean energy policy by continuing to enact and renew their renewable energy goals. Specifically, as this Dispatch has demonstrated, states should:

Enact RPS standards, and for those that have enacted them, to find ways to set higher goals that can be accomplished and are meaningful;
Provide financial support -- in the form of bonds, rebates, or other innovative financing mechanisms -- to accelerate the deployment of more renewable energy technologies;
Integrate renewable sources into an upgraded, “smart” grid, and;
Create good, sustainable green jobs that will enable those employees to develop, manufacture, deploy, and maintain the various elements of renewable sources and smart grid infrastructure.

The key is not only promoting renewable energy supplies, but also of creating actual incentives that spur their use. These incentives come in the form of mandating goals for renewable use, as was the case in Colorado, and placing financial incentives for clean energy investment. As more and more renewables are manufactured, installed and used, it is imperative that our electrical grid also undergoes a drastic reformation.

Resources
Environment America - America on the Move
Headwaters Economics - Clean Energy Leadership in the Rockies: Competitive Positioning in the Emerging Green Economy
Pew Research Center Publications - An Increase in GOP Doubt About Global Warming Deepens Partisan Divide
The Pew Charitable Trusts - The Clean Energy Economy: Repowering Jobs, Businesses and Investments Across America
Center for Social Inclusion - Solar Energy Generation at the Community Level: Briefing Paper Five of Black, Brown and Green

Green Economy Roundtable Law Enacted in Rhode Island

Fabiola Carrion — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:06:30 -0400

Rhode Island’s HB 7407, now Public Law No. 2010-203, creates the Green Economy Roundtable to advise and assist the Governor and General Assembly in advancing Rhode Island’s green energy economy by developing a statewide action plan.

The bill redefines the composition of Rhode Island’s Green Economy Roundtable in order to ensure a balanced representation of government efforts in advancing the green economy. Roundtable members will ensure that green economy decisions originate from the community as well as from business perspectives so that prosperity is shared by all residents of Rhode Island.

Similar to parts of Progressive States Network’s Green Building model legislation, such a roundtable ensures that community-based leaders, including union organizers, work in conjunction with representatives from the business sector in a task force that will promote, create and retain sustainable green jobs.

Resources
Progressive States Network - Green Building Model Legislation
Rhode Island - Green Economy Roundtable (HB 7407/Public Law No. 2010-203)

Supreme Court 2009-2010: Pro-Corporate, But Continued Trend Towards Deferral to State Authority

Nathan Newman — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:26:57 -0400

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ended its term with a bang with a ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago that state gun control regulations can be struck down by federal courts based on the Second Amendment. While the number and scale of blockbuster decisions was not so high this session, the singular impact of the Citizens United case earlier in the term unleashing unregulated corporate money on elections, combined with the dangerous implications of the Rent-A-Center, West v. Jackson arbitration decision, emphasizes the pro-corporate bias the Supreme Court has increasingly exercised in recent years.

As detailed below, other decisions on public university governance of student groups, property rights challenges to beach restoration programs and regulation of ballot initiative processes, did continue the trend in recent terms of the Supreme Court deferring to state authority in major cases. And criminal justice cases continued to be a mixed bag of protecting individual rights versus upholding state discretion.

Table of Contents:
- Citizens United and the Supreme Court’s Pro-Corporate Bias
- Supreme Court’s Deferral to State Authority
- Criminal Justice
- Conclusion

Citizens United and the Supreme Court’s Pro-Corporate Bias

There is little question that Citizens United will be one of the major cases that defines this year’s term—and in many ways will frame the legacy of the rise of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito whose presence on the court has led to the dismemberment of campaign finance regulation.

"A Massive New Threat of Corruption and Corporate Control": With Citizens United, the Supreme court has given corporations the same free speech rights as individuals and allowed unlimited election spending by corporations when not coordinated with candidates.

U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said recently,

The Citizens United decision -- yet another 5-4 decision [opens] our democratic system to a massive new threat of corruption and corporate control. There is an unmistakable pattern. For all the talk of umpires and balls and strikes at the Supreme Court, the strike zone for corporations gets better every day.

To emphasize its hostility to restrictions on the power of the wealthy over our elections, the Supreme Court ordered a freeze of Arizona's public financing matching funds system which gives candidates participating in public financing additional funds when opponents spend above benchmarked levels of spending. This means that publicly-financed candidates will be eligible to receive only one-third of the money to which they'd otherwise be entitled.

Letting Corporate Arbitrators Decide if Their Own Decisions are Unfair: In Rent-A-Center, West v. Jackson, the Supreme Court - by the same pro-corporate 5-4 vote lineup of Justices - further closed the courthouse door for individuals abused by their employers. The Court held that employees cannot only be forced to have complaints about racial discrimination or other employer abuses decided by private arbitrators (a reality decided in previous terms), but also that where an employee feels the terms of the arbitration agreement are unfair and unconscionable, it is up to the corporate-chosen arbitrator to decide if the arbitration agreement is unfair. In this case, for example, the arbitration agreement limited claims an employee might bring against the employer, while exempting those claims that Rent-a-Center might raise, and restricted an employee’s ability to gather evidence.

Instead of allowing a judge to decide whether the agreement to arbitrate could be enforced, the Supreme Court majority leaves it to the arbitrator chosen by the agreement alleged to be unfair to decide the issue, cutting off access to the courts even for the most basic threshold issue of whether these arbitrators and the rules imposed are a fair substitute for a day in court.

Privatizing Democracy: So just as corporations now have unlimited rein to use their money without regulation to dominate elections, those same corporations now have de facto have authority to run private courts to decide the legal rights of their own employees without little or no judicial restraint.

Supreme Court’s Deferral to State Authority

However, beyond these pro-corporate decisions, the Supreme Court, often with surprising configurations of majorities, continued its trend in recent years of deferral to state authority in more cases where core corporate interests are not at stake.

States and the Second Amendment: The exception to the trend this year was McDonald v. City of Chicago, which extended the Second Amendment to restrict state gun regulations. But even in that case, the majority went out of its way to affirm that many traditional gun control regulations will still be upheld even where an individual right to keep firearms for self-defense in the home is protected. Since most states have their own constitutional and statutory reasonableness test for gun regulations, the practical effects of McDonald may end up being relatively limited.

Rejecting “Takings” Doctrine: While right-wing constitutional lawyers for years hoped to create a majority to limit most local government land regulations as illegal “takings” under the Constitution, the Court in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection not only rejected a property rights challenge to a state beach-erosion statute, but Justice Anthony Kennedy refused to even give a fifth vote to the proposition that a court ruling could ever constitute a “taking” of private property, a sign that most reasonable land use regulations will be protected from federal judicial second-guessing in the future.

Universities and Groups Excluding Gay Students: In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, state universities retained their authority to deny funding to student groups that exclude certain students, such as gay and lesbian students, from membership. The Court upheld the University of California-Hastings' policy of requiring student groups to take on "all comers" as a prerequisite to official school recognition as a reasonable and viewpoint neutral restriction.

Public Disclosure of Ballot Initiative Signers: Given increasing use of fraud by those promoting right-wing ballot initiatives, progressives won an important victory in Doe v. Reed, in which the Court held that disclosure of signers of political ballot initiatives did not generally violate the First Amendment (although they might be able to in the future argue that specific harms could lead to some restriction on disclosure in a future case). In a strong argument for respecting state regulation of ballot initiatives, Justices Sotomayor, Stevens and Ginsburg wrote:

These mechanisms of direct democracy are not compelled by the Federal Constitution. It is instead up to the people of each State, acting in their sovereign capacity, to decide whether and how to permit legislation by popular action. States enjoy “considerable leeway” to choose the subjects that are eligible for placement on the ballot and to specify the requirements for obtaining ballot access (e.g., the number of signatures required, the time for submission, and the method of verification).

Reviewing Public Employee Text Messages: In a slightly idiosyncratic case, the Court in City of Ontario v. Quon unanimously held that a police department’s decision to review the text messages of employees who exceeded the monthly limit on their office pagers in order to determine whether the monthly limit should be raised was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

Criminal Justice

Criminal justice decisions by the Supreme Court invariably combine a combination of invocation of individual rights, discussions of state authority and obscure procedural explorations. While cases this term had few singular disruptions of previous principles, they had a number of clear incremental changes effecting state criminal proceedings. (See this ACLU writeup for an extended list of additional cases).

State Convictions and Immigration: Of import for current debates on the role of states in immigration policy, the court ruled in two cases that courts had to carefully weigh how state criminal statutes interact with federal deportation rules:

In Padilla v. Kentucky, the Court held that attorneys have an obligation to carefully advise their clients of the immigration consequences of pleading guilty. In this case, the defendant– a lawful permanent resident for 40 years who pled guilty to drug trafficking – was incorrectly advised by his lawyer that he was unlikely to face deportation because of his long stay in the United States.
In Carchuri-Rosendo v. Holder, a unanimous Court ruled that defendant’s conviction for possession of a single Xanax tablet without prescription, following an earlier state court conviction for possession of less than two ounces of marijuana, could not qualify as an aggravated felony under federal immigration law, and thus did not render the petitioner ineligible for potential discretionary relief from deportation.

Restricting Miranda: The Court significantly limited restrictions the Miranda “right to remain silent” in a series of cases limiting the Miranda ruling:

In the most critical case, in Berghuis, Warden v . Thompkins, a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court affirmed that a suspect did not properly invoke his right to remain silent, so statements were properly admitted in court. Justice Sotomayor, writing for four dissenters said, “the Court today creates an unworkable and conflicting set of presumptions that will undermine Miranda’s goal.”
In Florida v. Powell, the Court held that police warnings that a suspect had a right “to talk to a lawyer before answering any questions” adequately complied with Miranda, since the right does not require a particular set of words for police compliance.
In a 6-3 Graham v. Florida decision authored by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court found a Florida law unconstitutional under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause where juvenile offenders could be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a non-murder.
In Maryland v. Shatzer, the Court held that police did not violate the law by collecting incriminating statements from a person who had invoked his Miranda rights two and a half years earlier, and that the right against interrogation lasts only 14 days after invocation.

In other key decisions effecting state proceedings:

In Bobby v. Van Hook, Wong v. Belmontes and Porter v. McCollum, the court created a series of new standards for when counsel is so ineffective as to warrant a new trial.
In Presley v. Georgia, the Court concluded that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial had been violated when the public was excluded from the jury voir dire proceedings.
In Holland v. Florida, a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Breyer, the Court agreed that an attorney could harm his client so badly that the defendant’s time to seek habeas must be extended.

Conclusion

Elana Kagan’s likely replacement of Justice Stevens on the Court is unlikely to change the broader trends on the Court and states will continue to face the challenge of reining in the corporate election spending unleashed by Citizens United and protecting access to justice in the courts eroded by the Rent-a-Center case. As People for the American Way wrote in a recent report, Rise of the Corporate Court: How the Supreme Court is Putting Businesses First, “the conservative-tilting Court has reached out to enshrine and elevate the power of business corporations.”

While deferral to state authority has emerged as an increasing consensus among the Justices on a number of issues, lurking in the dissents of the most conservative Justices are even more extreme pro-corporate and right-wing views that with one more ally could push legal doctrine in ways that would completely erode democratic decision-making over economic and social policy. So even the more positive trends on the Court warrant only partial relief, since small changes in personnel in the future could readily enable the more activist impulses of the block of the four most right-wing members of the Court.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - The Supreme Court and the States 2008-2009: Trend Defending State Authority Emerges this Term
Scotusblog - Everything you read about the Supreme Court is wrong
ACLU - ACLU Summary of the 2009 Supreme Court Term
People for the American Way - Rise of the Corporate Court: How the Supreme Court is Putting Businesses First
Alliance for Justice - The Corporate Court

Landline Phone Deregulation to Deny Protection to Illinois Consumers

Fabiola Carrion — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:19:02 -0400

Illinois has enacted a law that will take away a necessary protection for landline phone consumers. SB 107 strips away the authority of the Illinois Commerce Commission to ensure that landline phone users – residing in 78 percent of households in the state - receive reliable and affordable phone service.

Under the law, Internet-based phone services would be completely unregulated. The ICC has been instrumental in promoting universal access to telecommunications services in the state, as mandated by the state’s Telecommunications Act that was last updated in 2001. It required a service provider to offer high-speed Internet access to at least 90 percent of homes outside of the Chicago Metropolitan area. This newly enacted law eliminates such requirement and the ability of Illinoisans to access affordable High-Speed Internet services. Consequently, the law threatens to reduce investment in broadband that could make the state more competitive in the global market.

Supporters of the law say that it will create competition and profits that will in turn translate into the creation of new jobs and services. However, a review of the bill reveals that employment generation is nowhere in its contents. Labor representatives in other states have confirmed that deregulation of telephony has driven down employment in the industry.

Moreover, a decrease in oversight is likely to result in higher costs for phone usage. Even supporters have acknowledged that prices for services could increase. Quality will also be affected by the law. Instead of requiring repair of landline service within 24 hours, the waiting window will be extended to 30 hours. Further, consumers will be unable to lawfully demand service quality standards from telecommunications companies.

Other Deregulation Attempts Blocked in Colorado and Wisconsin: A similar bill in Colorado, which was thankfully vetoed by the Governor, threatened to deregulate basic telephone service and negatively affect pricing and service quality. HB 1281 would have removed all authority from the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to regulate phone services. The bill would have also stripped away price and service-quality guarantees overseen by the Colorado PUC. In Wisconsin, SB 469 was introduced to also deregulate landline telephone business and leave residents, especially from rural areas, without adequate service. Consumer groups in Wisconsin have also voiced their concern that less regulation could lead to less investments in broadband infrastructure.

Massive Rate Hikes in California Following Deregulation: After abandoning oversight of the telecommunications, California consumers experienced hikes ranging from 50 to 276 percent in the following features: select custom calling services, local directory assistance, fees for returned checks, local toll rates, fees for having an unlisted numbers, and fees for late payments. And the promise to a competitive playing field that would create jobs and increase customer choices has not occurred.

Resources:
Citizens Utility Board - Talking points on rewriting Illinois’ Telecommunications Act
Chicago Tribune - New Illinois Law Relaxes Phone Regulations
Denver Post - Consumer Group Fears Bill May Spur Phone-Service Deregulation
Public News Service - AARP Blasts “Future of Phone Service” Deregulation Bill on Gov’s Desk
Utility Consumers' Action Network - California's Telco Deregulation Fiasco: Finding Alternative Phone Service in a Competitive Wasteland
Stop the Cap! - Wisconsin Deregulation Follies: AT&T Wants State to Make the Same Mistake All Over Again

State Broadband Awardees May Apply For Additional Funds

Fabiola Carrion — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 16:51:25 -0400

State governments may seek additional funding for up to three additional years on broadband projects. The announcement comes from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) who recognized that "better data and strategic planning are needed on the state level.

Launched last year, NTIA's State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program assists states in gathering data on the availability, speed, and location of broadband services. Originally funded for a two-year period, it has now been extended to five. States can now apply for three additional years of mapping and data collection work, as well as other initiatives, including state broadband task forces or advisory boards, technical assistance programs, local or regional technology planning efforts, and programs to promote increased computer ownership and Internet usage.

As we detailed in a previous Dispatch, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act apportioned billions of dollars in funding for state broadband initiatives, of which more than $100 million in grants have already been distributed. One example of these efforts is Maine's "Three-Ring Binder" network, which was launched thanks to $25.4 million awarded by the NTIA to reach the under-served and unserved rural areas of Maine. Rep. Cynthia Dill introduced LD 1778 to classify dark fiber as a utility and broadband provider to create a broadband sustainability fund to support "last mile" high-speed Internet infrastructure.

What States Gain and Lose Under Proposed US Senate Climate Change Bill

Fabiola Carrion — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:45:53 -0400

After years of states leading the fight to promote clean energy and reverse climate change and the House passing an energy bill last year, U.S. Senate leaders have finally introduced climate change legislation, the American Power Act (APA). The bill is lengthy and complex with compromises that many leading environmental groups object to (see Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth for examples of statements by major organizations and coalitions criticizing the bill), although other groups (see Center for American Progress, Apollo Alliance, Environment America, Blue Green Alliance and Natural Resources Defense Council) have more positive evaluations of the bill as a flawed, but important step forward.

The proposed Senate bill includes a wide range of provisions, including a cap and allowance on greenhouse gas emissions, a target for reducing those emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 (and 80% below by 2050), and a fee for "carbon leakage" on imports to level the playing field between American manufacturers and foreign competitors that emit climate change-inducing carbon. For more bill details, the NRDC has a comprehensive initial summary of provisions here.

The impact of the federal bill on state government efforts to promote clean energy policy could be profound, with at least three major effects:

State cap and trade programs would be eliminated, potentially replaced by weaker federal rules, albeit ones covering more states.
The federal government would provide additional funding for states’ efforts to develop renewable energy sources, including funding for the smart grid.
States would have greater financial incentives to engage in off-shore drilling while also gaining greater protections if they want to opt out of off-shore drilling.

State Cap and Trade Programs: Long before federal efforts, states created their own cap and trade initiatives, which will be shut down under the federal bill and replaced by a national system more favorable to polluting industries. The first cap-and-trade government program was the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), composed by 10 Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. To date, eight auctions have taken place under RGGI and the revenues have been reinvested in energy-efficiency initiatives and innovations. Other states in the West and Midwest have similar regional cap-and-trade programs.

Although a federal standard is necessary, an RGGI official stated, “you don’t want to preempt states who can go further and become a model for the country.’’ Preemption would be extremely damaging to states that depend on the clean energy economy to create more jobs and reduce the high levels of pollution. Thanks to the allowances operating in these states, hundreds of millions of dollars have already been raised to create jobs and help homes and businesses become more energy efficient. While there are promises in the Senate bill to compensate states for those losses, it is unclear how complete that compensation will go.

More positively, state authority to set vehicle standards is retained, as is authority to establish clean energy, energy efficiency, and other greenhouse gas control programs with higher standards than federal requirements.

Funding for Renewable Energy Programs: The Act supports state renewable energy programs by promising that a percentage of the revenues raised by allowances be distributed to the states. APA recommends the development of energy efficient buildings (see PSN’s Green Buildings Shared Agenda), as well as renewable electricity incentives, gas utility efficiency programs and smart appliances. The bill also defines the smart grid and promotes its development in the states, including the integration of renewable energy resources and distributed generation, demand response, demand-side management, and system analysis. For a detailed analysis on how the smart grid and other technologies build a green economy, click here.

Off-Shore Drilling and the States: In response to the catastrophe caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the bill now includes two restrictions to off-shore drilling. First, states can opt-out of drilling up to 75 miles offshore. Second, states can veto the drilling plans if they “suffer significant adverse impacts in the event of an accident.” On the other hand, the bill offers large financial rewards to states that allow offshore drilling, with 37.5 percent of royalties from new offshore rigs directed to states, and 12.5 percent of royalties would be deposited in the Land and Water Conservation Fund for federal and state parks and land acquisition. With hard-pressed state budgets, many environmental leaders see these provisions encouraging states to take reckless risks to allow drilling near their states.

A Preemption Dilemma for State Leaders: Many of the states that have pioneered green energy programs are left in a confusing position. On one hand, the bill offers general support for states to run renewable energy programs, but on the other, it will prevent those states who were first to adopt comprehensive energy solutions to fulfill their cap and trade programs and will preempt them from taking some additional steps in regulating destructive industry practices. Many federal environmental laws have long allowed states to adopt standards that are more stringent than federal policies, so any preemption of state initiatives that cap greenhouse gas emissions is a step backwards that should be reevaluated as debate on federal legislation moves forward.

Resources:
American Power Act
Center for American Progress - American Power Act Empowers Americans: An Examination of Benefits to Americans in the Clean Energy Bill
Natural Resources Defense Council - Offshore Drilling Provisions Are Insufficient to Protect Oceans and Coastal Communities
Natural Resources Defense Council - The American Power Act: “First Read” of the Kerry-Lieberman Climate and Energy Legislation
Blue-Green Alliance - Labor-Environmental Partnership Urges Senate to Pass Comprehensive Climate and Clean Energy Legislation to Create Jobs and Make America the Leader in the Global Clean Energy Economy
Environment America -New Draft Climate Bill Takes Critical Steps Forward, But Must Do More to Get America Off Oil
Greenpeace - Kerry-Lieberman Dirty Energy Bailout Bill Not the Solution America Needs
Friends of the Earth - American Power Act: Threatening to Stymie Fight against Global Warming
Apollo Alliance - Apollo Alliance Urges Passage of Comprehensive Federal Clean Energy, Good Jobs Plan as Sens. Kerry and Lieberman Introduce New Bill
Progressive States Network - Returning Cap-and-Trade Revenue to Consumers Recommended in California
Progressive States Network - Climate Justice: Promoting Equity in Dealing with Climate Change
Progressive States Network - Multi-State Shared Agenda: Green Buildings
Progressive States Network - Networking the Green Economy - How Broadband and Related Technologies Can Build a Green Economic Future

Payday Lending Abuses Reined In, As Colorado Joins Other States in Reform

Cristina Francisco-McGuire — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:37:16 -0400

The payday lending trap has been shorting working families to the tune of nearly $5 billion per year ever since the industry exploded onto the scene in the 1990’s. The number of payday lending institutions has jumped exponentially from 500 in 1990 to about 22,000 today (compared with 14,000 McDonald's), mainly targeting low-income African American and Latino communities.

But two weeks ago, Colorado enacted payday industry reforms, squeaking by with a one-vote margin in the Colorado House. Though lenders can still charge a $75 origination fee as well as monthly fees of up to $30 on top of interest, the bill addresses cycles of debt by capping APR interest rates at 45% and mandating that borrowers be given as long as six months to pay back loans.

Colorado’s joins sixteen other states and the District of Columbia which have already passed limits on interest rates for short-term loans, ranging from 17 percent to 60 percent.

Beyond Capping Interest Rates: A number of other reforms have been enacted or proposed in other states to prevent workers being bled dry by payday loans, including:

Oregon approved SB 993, which toughened existing predatory lending regulations by requiring any lender that derives more than 10% of its business from payday loans to acquire a license from the Dept. of Consumer and Business Services to conduct business, on top of the licenses already required by state and local law. The new law also creates new notice, reporting, and regulatory compliance requirements for payday lenders, the non-compliance of which can result in fines and other penalties.
Illinois’ HB 537 caps the APR on payday loans to 99%, indexes the loans based on the borrower’s ability to pay, and would require loans to be paid off in equal monthly installments with no balloon payments. After passing the House in April, it cleared the Senate in May and is waiting for a concurrence vote in the House.
The Ohio House passed HB209, which limits fees charged by payday lenders. Though Ohio already caps APRs at 28%, the fees were a way for lenders to get around regulations. Though it faces a tough battle in the Senate, Gov. Ted Strickland supports the legislation.
SB 193 passed both houses of the New Hampshire legislature, and establishes a 36% APR cap on all small loans under $10,000, including payday loans.
Though Iowa’s HF 2127, which would give payday lenders the option of capping the APR for loans at 36% or limiting the number of loans per borrower at six per year, was one vote short of moving out of a subcommittee, momentum is building. After 60 members of the Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement managed to shut down the operations of an Ace Cash Express in Des Moines in December 2009, Des Moines City Council members voted unanimously on May 13, 2010, to a six-month moratorium on new payday loan stores in the city.

Unfortunately, two states passed weaker legislation designed to appease the payday lending industry, throwing consumers under the proverbial bus in the process. Utah and Wisconsin both caved to threats that the industry would shed jobs with further regulation, approving bills that stopped short of requiring much-needed limits on interest rates.

Stopping Steps Backward: Advocates are also working to defeat legislation in California, AB 377, that would be a huge step backward, increases the maximum payday loan amount from $300 to $500 and allows lenders to charge consumers an APR as high as 459% for a two week loan. It would also establish de facto legalization of internet payday lending. It passed the Assembly in May 2009 and is awaiting a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

See the Center for Responsible Lending for more of the latest news on payday lending reform here. For a useful infographic on how payday lending works, visit The Consumerist.

Resources:
Center for Responsible Lending - Pay Day Lending
Coloradans for Payday Lending Reform
Consumer Federation of California, “CFC Opposes AB 377 (Mendoza) – Pro Payday Lenders, Anti Borrower”
Consumerist - How Predatory Lending Works, From Payday Loans To Rent-To-Own

Financial Reform: Keep State AGs and State Law on the Beat Against Predatory Lending Practices

Nathan Newman — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:22:39 -0400

As Congress debates federal financial reform legislation, a key priority for financial industry lobbyists remains gutting provisions that would strengthen enforcement by state attorneys general and stopping the partial restoration of state powers to regulate national bank abuses against consumers. As we detailed three years ago, much of the damage to communities from subprime lending might have been avoided if the Bush Administration had not been able to shut down most state anti-predatory lending laws early in the decade.

Strengthening state power to regulate abuses by national banks has been a priority for reformers from the beginning of the financial reform process. While the bill approved in the House and the current leadership proposal in the Senate are not as strong in preserving state enforcement powers as some early proposals, under them state attorneys general would still retain the power to enforce federal law against national banks. Federal authority to preempt state banking laws would also be more limited than under our current laws. One broad amendment to keep current bad federal preemption of state banking laws was rejected last Thursday, although most conservative Senators voted for it. (Note that "states' rights" inevitably lose out in conservative hands when corporate interests want federal power to trump state regulations).

Stopping Bad Senate Deals on Preemption: Newspapers continue to report on deals being negotiated between conservative Democrats and Republicans to undermine state regulatory authority, even as national consumer leaders continue to speak out against any further preemption compromises. A letter sent to Senators on Friday by Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition made up of over 250 consumer, labor and civil rights groups, highlights the key arguments for why expanding state authority is so critical, including:

"Help from state AGs is critical to ensuring that consumers have at least minimum protections against reckless Wall Street practices. In addition, consumers are much more likely to complain to, and get a response from, state-based enforcement agencies."
"States need to be able to address new problems before they spread nationally, without waiting for federal regulators to notice them and respond... States that had tough anti-predatory lending laws (until they were preempted) had lower foreclosure rates than states without those laws. After state laws were preempted, national banks made riskier loans."
"It is critical to require a case-by-case assessment of state laws for purposes of federal preemption rather than permitting state laws to be wiped out broadly without due consideration for each law... the protections in the bill against excessive preemption need to be strengthened, substantively and procedurally, to ensure that the [federal government] must undertake a serious inquiry and not a pro forma one."

With critical votes happening all this week, Americans for Financial Reform has an action page with key alerts and tools for contacting Congress to express the need for real financial reform, including keeping authority in the states to protect consumers from national bank abuses.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - The Predatory Lending Bubble and How the Feds Made it Worse
Progressive States Network - Protecting State Consumer Protection from Preemption in Federal Financial Reform
Americans for Financial Reform - Elizabeth Warren and Attorney General Lisa Madigan Speak Out Against Preemption Deal
Americans for Financial Reform - Keep State Attorneys General On The Predatory Lending Beat: Oppose Amendments To Further Preempt State Authority

Bringing Integrity Back to Science: The US National Academy of Sciences Letter on Climate Change

Fabiola Carrion — Mon, 10 May 2010 12:12:24 -0400

Amidst a surge of questions on the veracity of climate change, 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, which since 1863 has advised the government on scientific and technological issues, have expressed their disturbance by these recent “political assaults” and have made it clear: “humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.”

In a letter published on May 7 in Science Magazine, these leading scientists denounced those who deny climate change as “driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence.” This unusually blunt letter was reportedly drafted in response to the remarks by Republican Senator James M. Inhofe (OK) who labeled climate change data as a "hoax" and to state-based groups like the Heartland Institute, which has promoted "climate denial" propaganda in statehouses around the country.

The letter outlines fundamental premises for which there is a scientific consensus:

The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth's climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times.
The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

It is now, the undersigners insist, that policy makers must move forward to address the causes of climate change. The letter comes as Senators Kerry and Lieberman are ready to introduce a comprehensive clean energy bill this week in the Senate and as states continue to promote their own versions of climate change legislation.

Resources:
The National Academy of Sciences
Science Magazine -Climate Change and the Integrity of Science
San Francisco Chronicle -Climate Scientists Decry 'Political Assaults'

Arizona and the Nation: A Failing State Versus Positive Approaches to Immigrant Integration

Suman Raghunathan — Mon, 03 May 2010 14:33:14 -0400

As we highlighted two weeks ago, the Arizona legislature and Governor's decisions to pass a punitive, anti-immigrant bill - SB1070 - have unleashed a torrent of condemnations inside and outside of Arizona. Voices speaking up against the bill have come not only from civil rights organizations, but have also included public safety officials, constitutional legal scholars, and, significantly, Republican leaders and candidates from other states with significant immigrant populations.

While Arizona's extreme, draconian law is grabbing headlines, what's gotten less attention is how Arizona is an isolated case with increasingly anti-immigrant laws and policies advanced over the last few years. A handful of states have joined Arizona in its punitive approach to immigration, yet the often-ignored reality is that the vast majority of immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, live in states that have promoted far more humane and successful approaches emphasizing immigrant integration into local economies and communities.

As this Dispatch will detail, Arizona has blazed its own (misguided) path on immigration, which reflects dysfunctional right-wing politics that have driven the state into an economic disaster of low wages, mass-foreclosures and a punishing fiscal crisis. Grandstanding on race may be Arizona's substitute for grappling with its deep, systematic economic problems, but few other states have followed its lead in recent years, and even fewer seem likely to follow it on SB1070.

SB1070 highlights the need for more systematic campaigns to deepen immigrant integration policies in the states and for passage of federal comprehensive immigration reform to address the border and the need for legalization. The economic gains from positive reforms on immigration are too large to ignore at both the state and federal level.

We invite state legislators to join State Legislators for Progressive Immigration Policy (SLPIP) and other allies to sign up with PSN's State Immigration Project for updates on promoting progressive state immigration policy by emailing immigration@progressivestates.org.

Table of Contents:

- SB1070: Legalizing Racial Profiling, Violating Federalism

- Police, Civil Rights Groups and Republican Leaders Condemn SB1070

- SB1070: Symbol of Arizona's Failed Economy and Right-Wing Politics

- Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Politics Not the Norm for States with Immigrant Populations

- SB1070 Deepens the Need for Federal Comprehensive Immigration Reform

- The Economic Benefits of Legalization and Positive Immigration Integration Strategies

- Progressive Strategy to Address Immigration Policy

SB1070: Legalizing Racial Profiling, Violating Federalism

As we described two weeks ago, SB1070 is a radical anti-immigrant piece of legislation that will open the floodgates to racial profiling and abuses of civil liberties. The law will be challenged in court for both violating individual rights and being an illegal assertion of state authority given the federal government's primary responsibility for border and immigration matters. But in the meantime, the effects of its implementation will be sweeping, since the law:

Legalizes Racial Profiling: State and local government law enforcement officers are required to determine if a person is illegally in the United States based on a “reasonable suspicion,” an open ended approach that will encourage suspicions based on race. The law does little, if anything, to prohibit police officers from relying on race or ethnicity in deciding who to investigate.
Criminalizes immigration, which isn't a crime under federal law: Makes it a state crime to be in the country without legal status.
Undercuts Federalism: The law grants local police arrest authority for administrative violations of federal immigration law, even though the state police do not even have that authority under federal law.
Criminalizes Speech: The law criminalizes the solicitation of work even though courts have previously ruled that the solicitation of work is protected speech under the First Amendment.
Potentially Deters Enforcement of Other Laws: Since the law requires police officers responding to any city ordinance violation to automatically determine the immigration status of an individual they have reasonable suspicion of being an undocumented immigrant, many local violations won't be reported, consequently diverting law enforcement attention from violent crimes.

SB1070 Is a Product of a Racist, Anti-Immigrant National Network: The sweep of the law is hardly accidental, since it is the product of a national network of anti-immigrant groups tied to racist hate groups. As the Center for New Community noted in a recent email update:

[SB1070] was drafted by a lawyer for the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), whose founder has warned of a “Latin onslaught” and complained about Latinos’ alleged low “educability.” FAIR has accepted $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, a racist foundation that was set up by Nazi sympathizers to fund studies of eugenics, the science of selective breeding to produce a “better” race. The legislation was sponsored by state Senator Russell Pearce, who once e-mailed an anti-Semitic article from the neo-Nazi National Alliance website to supporters.

Kris Kobach, a Kansas law professor now running for Kansas Secretary of State, is the chief author of the bill, as emails recently revealed. Kobach was a top immigration advisor to John Ashcroft at the Justice Department who promoted national racial profiling of legal U.S. residents post-September 11th. He also drafted the local anti-immigrant ordinance for Hazelton, PA, which was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge in 2007.

With an eye on empowering allied groups like FAIR and related anti-immigrant groups, SB1070 is designed to allow them to sue local law enforcement agencies if they believe that are not adequately enforcing the new law, giving the right-wing new tools to control local police departments under threat of litigation.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - Arizona Risks Jeopardizing its Economic Future as it Contemplates Passing Anti-Immigrant Law
Center for American Progress - Fast Facts on Arizona’s Immigration Crack Down
Center for New Community - Fair Exposed, an online bi-weekly publication produced by the Center for New Community, a national civil rights organization. To subscribe email, fairexposed@newcomm.org.
Southern Poverty Law Center - Arizona Immigration Law Violates Constitution, Guarantees Racial Profiling
Wonk Room - The Group Behind The Harshest Immigration Bill In America
TalkingPointsMemo - AZ Immigration Bill Writer's Resume: GOP Activist, Ashcroft Aide, Arpaio Ally
The Rachel Maddow Show - Against Racial Profiling, Except When They're For It, Immigration Group President Addresses Racism Accusations, To Be FAIR: Following Dan Stein, Correcting the Record

Police, Civil Rights Groups and Republican Leaders Condemn SB1070

Unsurprisingly, a wide range of civil rights, labor, community and immigrant rights organizations within Arizona and the nation have condemned the law. The opposition to the bill has extended to law enforcement officers, legal experts and even Republican leaders in other states with large immigrant populations.

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush noted, "I think it creates unintended consequences. It's difficult for me to imagine how you're going to enforce this law. It places a significant burden on local law enforcement and you have civil liberties issues that are significant as well." Even Republican strategist Karl Rove echoed, "I think there is going to be some constitutional problems with the bill. I wished they hadn't passed it, in a way."

Within Arizona, it is notable that the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police has opposed the law on both fiscal and public safety grounds, since they worry that fear of government officials by immigrant populations will diminish the public’s willingness to cooperate with police in criminal investigations and will “negatively affect the ability of law enforcement agencies across the state to fulfill their many responsibilities in a timely manner.”

The President of the American Bar Association in a statement said, "It is, quite simply put, a law based on prejudice and fear, one whose purpose is to be divisive. This law encourages second-class treatment of individuals based on the color of their skin, and that is unacceptable."

Most telling for how out of step Arizona leaders have been are statements by Republican state leaders from states with large immigrant populations:

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger believes Arizona's approach is "as unconscionable as it is unconstitutional," and vowed to pull California's state pension funds invested in Arizona.
Florida Senatorial candidate, former Florida Speaker of the House and Tea Party darling Marco Rubio warned SB1070 will create a police state: "From what I have read in news reports, I do have concerns about this legislation... I think aspects of the law, especially that dealing with 'reasonable suspicion,' are going to put our law enforcement officers in an incredibly difficult position." He later told reporters, "That's not really something that Americans are comfortable with, the notion of a police state."
Texas Governor Rick Perry said in a statement that "some aspects of the law turn law enforcement officers into immigration officials by requiring them to determine immigration status during any lawful contact with a suspected alien, taking them away from their existing law enforcement duties, which are critical to keeping citizens safe." Perry's views parallel those of his corporate supporters, like the president of the right-wing Texas Association of Business, who recently called Arizona's law "blatantly unconstitutional," saying there was "little likelihood the Texas Legislature would pass anything so misguided as what they've done in Arizona."

When conservative stars like Marco Rubio and Rick Perry think a law is too extreme, it's clear Arizona's leaders have moved into their own corner of anti-immigrant extremism.

SB1070: Symbol of Arizona's Failed Economy and Right-Wing Politics

Click for larger image online.

If other state leaders, even conservative ones from border states like Texas, are not rushing to copy SB1070, it's because whatever their partisan politics, they don't share the peculiar brand of pathological right-wing politics and the hollow economy that has left Arizona such a political and economic basket case.

Other states have grappled with a range of programs to reform their economies and budgets during the current economic crisis. That Arizona's claim to fame in this crisis is immigrant bashing in the form of SB1070 is symbolic of years, even decades of failed political and economic policies. That Arizona politics has promoted low-wage jobs that have left state residents with falling individual incomes relative to the rest of the nation and conditions for the state's children that rank at the bottom of the nation. Since the current economic recession began in December 2007, Arizona has lost 265,000 jobs, or 9.9 percent of the state's employment. And with little else to offer the unemployed, scapegoating immigrants has become a substitute in Arizona for having a real solution to solving the economic needs of its residents.

Individual Incomes Fall Behind the Nation: For decades, Arizona's average wages and income have been falling behind other states. A University of Arizona business school study from 2005 noted that "over the long term, the real income of the average Arizonan has lagged behind the rest of the nation... Arizona slipped from 94 percent of the U.S. level in 1970 to 86 percent in 2003." While the bubble economy in the state of the mid-decade gave a slight bump to individual incomes in the state, per capita income fell 4 percent from 2008 to 2009 after having been stagnant for the previous two years, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis recently reported. Arizona was tied for fourth place with Idaho in having the highest drop in personal incomes per capita. Nationally, the decline last year was 2.6 percent.

An Economy Built on a Construction Bubble: The Urban Land Institute has referred to Phoenix as the "poster child" for the housing downturn and bad mortgages. The average price paid for office space in the Phoenix metro area tumbled more than 50 percent one year in 2009. Back in 2006, when growth peaked, about 30 percent of the Phoenix area’s economic output was tied to real estate and construction; subtract that bubble economic engine and even the nominal job growth in the state during the last decade collapsed into unemployment and foreclosures.

Part of the problem is that state leaders encouraged a low-wage, bubble-based economic strategy that added a mirage of job and population growth during the last decade, but left the state with poor fundamentals for long-term growth when the financial bubble collapsed nationally. Highlighting the weak economic underpinnings of the state economy, the Arizona Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale metropolitan area ranked near the bottom, 192nd of 200 metro areas, for growth in high-tech gross domestic product from 2003 through 2008, according to the Milken Institute.

Fiscal Solutions More Irresponsible Than Any in Nation: Arizona's fiscal crisis is considered one of the worst in the country by the Pew Center on the States. Since 1992, the state has approved 42 tax cuts to its three major revenue sources -- personal and corporate income, and sales -- and eliminated statewide property taxes that accrued to the general fund-- and despite promises of right-wing economic nirvana, the results have been low personal income growth and a generally low-level of resources for human needs.

Arizona has some of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, 18.9 percent of the state lacks health insurance and 276,500 Arizona children do not have coverage. In the most recent Annie E. Casey Foundation's annual "Kids Count" report, Arizona ranked 40th in the nation in child well-being, one of the worst in the nation for its teen birth rate (46th), high-school dropout rate (46th) and percentage of children not attending school and not working (44th).

But what truly distinguishes Arizona is its right-wing, inhumane and short-sighted approaches to addressing its current fiscal problems:

State leaders passed a law to abolish the state's KidCare program providing children's health care to 40,000 kids, the only state in the country to take such a step, and only reversed themselves when they discovered they would forfeit billions in federal dollars if they did so.
Wide-ranging cuts in programs across the state, from eliminating full-day kindergarten to cutting state employee salaries to removing 10,000 families from TANF cash assistance.
Two-thirds of Arizona state parks will be closed.

And this has been combined with a whole range of other right-wing and just plain kooky laws promoted by the Arizona's legislature.

SB1070 Will Make Arizona's Economic Problems Worse: Passing SB1070 will simply deepen the state's economic crisis. As the National Employment Law Project points out, smaller-scale anti-immigrant ordinances have cost individual localities millions of dollars. And other studies estimate SB1070 will further decimate Arizona's economy by driving immigrant families, undocumented and legal residents alike, from the state, further depressing demands for goods and already vacant housing tracts.

The Arizona Republic detailed, "More than 100,000 undocumented immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years because of the bad economy and earlier enforcement crackdowns. Now, a new wave of Latinos is preparing to leave."

"So, rather than massive deportations, we are basically going to encourage them to leave on their own," said State Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, who is also a criminal-justice professor at Scottsdale Community College. But even he admits that the law will likely drive legal residents and their families out of the state.

The Texas-based Perryman Group found if all unauthorized immigrants were removed from Arizona, the state would lose $26.4 billion in economic activity, $11.7 billion in gross state product, and approximately 140,324 jobs.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and other local leaders anticipate a drop in new business creation in the state because of the new hostile environment. Phoenix Vice Mayor Michael Nowakowski observed: “We’re the laughing stock of the country because of these crazy laws.”

Resources:
Think Progress - Arizona Expands Its Discrimination: Teachers With Heavy Accents Can’t Teach English, Ethnic Studies Are Banned
Rogue Columnist - Arizona's Continuing Crisis and Kookocracy Watch
Arizona State University W.B. Carey School of Business - Jobs, Income, And Growth In Arizona: Individual Versus Aggregate Measures Of Economic Performance
Progressive States Network - Eye on the Right: Arizona's Failed Experiment with Tax Cuts

Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Politics Not the Norm for States with Immigrant Populations

Despite much media hype, most states with high concentrations of undocumented and legal immigrants have rejected the punitive approach of Arizona and a handful of like-minded states. Most states have quietly been moving forward with positive, integrative approaches to new immigrants in their communities.

As PSN detailed in a report in 2008 -- and the basic numbers have changed little since then -- only 11% of undocumented immigrants live in states that have enacted comprehensive punitive policies or sanctions in private workplaces against undocumented workers.

Most Undocumented Residents Live in States with Integration Policies: Instead, a significant majority of undocumented immigrants live in states with positive integrative or somewhat integrative policies. As detailed in a section below, with the right state policies, new immigrants bring new skills, business startups and economic growth-- and most states with experience with new immigrants have promoted policies to tap that economic growth potential.

Many states, including many of those where most undocumented immigrants live such as Texas and California, now provide in-state tuition (so-called DREAM Acts) for undocumented immigrants going to public universities. Others are promoting policies to integrate immigrants through English language instruction and assistance in navigating the citizenship process. A number of states such as Illinois and New York are providing health insurance to undocumented children. And instead of trying to punish immigrant workers, states are increasingly working with native and immigrant workers to crack down on bad employers who are violating minimum wage, safety and workers compensation laws.

In fact, over 50% of undocumented immigrants live in states that provide in-state tuition for undocumented immigrant children and nearly the same majority of undocumented immigrants live in states that are promoting "New Americans" policies to better educate new immigrants and nearly a majority also live in states that have recently enacted new penalties for wage law violations in order to raise wages for all workers, native and immigrant alike. See the chart for a comparison of the more pervasive positive approaches to immigration compared to the minority punitive approach.

The media largely rewards the tactics of political opportunists who to use the issue of immigration as a "wedge" issue, but ignore the political and economic success of other states in integrating new immigrants into their state economies and communities.

A State Agenda for Progressive Immigration Policy: As we highlighted in our Dispatch, State Immigration Policy to Promote National Change, there are a range of positive state policies that can improve the lives of immigrants and raise living standards and public safety for everyone, native and immigrant alike. These include:

Wage Law Enforcement as Immigration Policy - Redirect anger at lawlessness in the workplace toward employers who violate wage and other worker rights laws -- an approach that unites all workers, immigrant and native alike.
Immigrant Integration and Naturalization - Highlight policies that help all immigrants to better integrate into society, a broadly popular policy and one that also unites the interests of legal and undocumented immigrants.
Address Debate on Immigrants and Public Benefits - Emphasize the benefits to the public from providing education and preventive care to immigrants. Support resolutions that demand that the federal government, which receives billions in taxes paid by undocumented workers, share those revenues with states to expand services for communities with heavy immigrant populations.
Voting Reform versus "Voter ID" Attacks - Challenge the voter ID requirements that are disenfranchising many legal voters and support anti-voter intimidation policies. Support reforms like same day registration and vote-by-mail to assist citizens forced to overcome any new barriers to voting.
Community Policing and Immigrant Outreach for Public Safety - Support community policing policies that encourage immigrants to work closely with the police when they either see a crime or are victims themselves. Encourage community policing efforts involving undocumented immigrant communities.

Smart state policy proposals that emphasize the areas where the public is supportive of immigrant integration into our communities are both smart policy and smart politics. By better controlling the debate at the local and state level, progressives can help build support for federal reforms to regularize the legal status of undocumented immigrants and build a path to citizenship. Such strategies can isolate those who promote the scapegoating of immigrants and instead emphasize the issues that will benefit everyone, from wage law enforcement to integrating new immigrants into our local economies.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - State Immigration Policy to Promote National Change
Progressive States Network - The Anti-Immigrant Movement that Failed: Positive Integration Policies by States Still Far Outweigh Punitive Policies

SB1070 Deepens the Need for Federal Comprehensive Immigration Reform

If SB1070 accomplishes anything, it will be to focus national attention on why it is critical to revamp and improve federal immigration laws. Those on both sides of the partisan aisle overwhelmingly agree the nation's immigration system is broken, and long overdue for an update.

While federal law essentially decides who can legally enter the US and determines immigrants' eligibility for most services and benefits (according to federal immigration law, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for most public benefits apart from emergency room medical care), states have considerable jurisdiction over immigrants' access to some basic services and programs - such as, for example, New York state's decision to provide basic prenatal health care for women -- regardless of their immigration status -- as well as how state and local government (including law enforcement officers) interact with immigrant residents.

As noted above, most states have engaged immigration in a more positive manner: for example, several states (including Utah and Texas) extend in-state tuition rates to undocumented students who attend state universities and colleges. But given the given the federal vacuum on immigration, some states like Arizona will inevitably take matters into their own hands in a punitive direction.

The last comprehensive immigration reform, enacted in 1986 by Republican President Ronald Reagan, included a large-scale legalization program that allowed roughly 3 million undocumented immigrants to obtain legal status. Despite attempts at immigration reform in 2001, 2006, and 2007, there has been no significant change in the status quo of immigration policy since 1986. The longer the nation is forced to wait for federal immigration reform, the more states will make patchwork attempts to address immigration at the state level and the more opportunities there are for states to take misguided and economically disastrous approaches to immigration policy such as Arizona's.

Proposed Federal Reforms Promote Compromise Solution: The most recent proposal, unveiled by Senators Menendez, Reid, and Schumer, outlines a number of provisions to address the crisis:

On the negative side, it introduces a national identity card and takes a 'zero tolerance' approach with plans to continue to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants who are suspected of committing crimes; it also significantly ramps up militarization of the US-Mexico border.
However, the proposal also dramatically expands the channels for legal immigration into the US and provides an (albeit lengthy) path to legalization, and ultimately citizenship, for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants currently in the US. The proposal grants provisional legal status (which includes work authorization) to undocumented residents who come forward, register with the federal government, pay a fine, and commit to learning English. After eight years, if border enforcement and surveillance programs are successfully implemented, these individuals are then eligible for permanent resident status, and five years later are eligible to apply for US citizenship.
The Menendez-Reid-Schumer proposal also would grant permanent resident status (known as a 'green card') to every immigrant who earns an advanced degree from an American university, and would end country-based quotas on the number of H1B visas extended to highly-skilled workers who seek to enter the US.
Finally, the proposal would streamline the process for spouses and immediate relatives of those with green cards to enter the US themselves, addressing a backlog of family-based immigration that often requires family members to wait a decade before they can legally join their relatives in the US.

Resource: American Immigration Lawyers Association - Analysis of Senate Democrats Immigration Reform Proposal

The Economic Benefits of Legalization and Positive Immigration Integration Strategies

Several recent academic studies have underscored the economic benefits that a large-scale legalization program would bring to the US economy and households, despite the current flawed conventional wisdom that legalization would cause already-high unemployment rates to rise.

A study by Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Oveda of the University of California - Los Angeles uses the economic impact of the 1986 legalization program (one that also occurred during an economic recession with high unemployment) to forecast how a legalization program would affect the current economy. His analysis found a legalization program would yield at least $1.5 trillion in gross domestic product over a ten-year period. Legalization would allow undocumented workers to emerge from the underground economy, and would, as a result, raise not only their wages but those of their native-born counterparts, raising the wage floor for many workers. Increased wages would, in turn, fuel increased purchasing power and homeownership among newly-legalized immigrants, injecting billions, if not trillions, of dollars into the US economy as a whole.

Libertarians also echo the belief that immigrants, even those working in low-wage sectors, expand the American economy. According to this commentary analysis from the libertarian CATO Institute, "the addition of low-skilled immigrants expands the size of the overall economy, creating higher-wage openings for managers, craftsmen, accountants, and the like." Undocumented immigrants are typically low-income, but they are almost all employed. According to estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, male undocumented immigrants, ages 18 to 64, had a labor-force participation rate in 2004 of an amazing 92 percent.

Other studies have found wage levels of low-wage immigrant workers increase by as much as 30 percent when they improve their English fluency by just one level, because they are able to advocate for themselves more effectively in the workplace - a powerful testimony to increasing state and federal funding for English as a Second Language classes.

Finally, federal, state, and local tax bases would benefit significantly from the increased earnings and purchasing power of newly-legalized immigrants. The Social Security Administration estimates that roughly 75% of undocumented immigrants pay payroll taxes. In fact, the Drum Major Institute notes that undocumented workers already are largely responsible for the future viability of the Social Security system with their $7 billion in annual tax contributions - most which they will never be able to access. And the President's Council of Economic Advisors found that US natives gain an estimated $37 billion annually from immigrants' economic contributions as a whole.

Resources:
Immigration Policy Center - The Fiscal Bottom Line on Immigration Reform
Immigration Policy Center - Assessing the Economic Impact of Immigration and the State and Local Level
Immigration Policy Center & UCLA: Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Immigration Policy Center - Immigration Reform as Economic Stimulus
Commentary Magazine - Higher Immigration, Lower Crime
Drum Major Institute - Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class
America's Voice - Immigrants to Tea Party Protesters: We'll Pay!
America's Voice - Facts at a Glance on Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Progressive Strategy to Address Immigration Policy

To defeat anti-immigrant attacks, the key for progressives is to proactively use smart policy campaigns to change the public debate on immigration both at the state and national level. Globalization is driving economic changes, including immigration, that cause fear and uncertainty for many voters, but if progressives promote economic and social policies that address the broader needs of working families and propose a vision of how to effectively integrate new immigrants into our communities, there is no sustained majority for punitive measures against undocumented immigrants.

Beyond individual policy options, advocates and elected leaders need to emphasize that the coalition in support of humane policies involving new immigrants is diverse and cuts into even many seemingly conservative communities. Elected leaders can build on traditional support from many African-American leaders to labor unions to forge alliances with forward-looking business leaders and religious leaders, including many evangelicals, who recognize that smart, humane immigration policies for our communities is a source of both moral and social strength.

Anti-Immigrant Conservatives Playing a Losing Game: And the dangerous reality for anti-immigrant conservatives is that they are playing a losing demographic game, with new legal immigrants voting in increasing numbers that will punish any party or ideological group that promotes racist approaches to the immigration issue -- one reason many Republican leaders are denouncing SB1070 so quickly.

There were 10 million Latino voters in 2008, an increase of 4 million since 2000. And a May 2009 poll of Latino voters found that 82% of Latino voters felt immigration was important to them and their families. Punitive approaches like SB1070 will inevitably impel a negative reaction, with nearly six-in-ten (57%) Latinos in a 2008 Pew Hispanic Center survey, saying they worried that they themselves or a friend or family member would be deported as a result of similar policies.

Conclusion: Humane immigration politics are also smart politics in the long-term, since the present coalition for progressive immigration policy is rapidly being joined by new citizens who are unlikely to forgive politicians who vote for racial profiling or other attacks on their communities. Ultimately, in an increasingly diverse nation, there is no long-term political future for politicians pushing these anti-immigrant laws. Elected officials who step up with intelligent, humane policies on immigration will both build a stronger economy and society in their states and win politically in the long-term.

Resources:
Progressive States Network -State Policymakers Need to Respond to Growing Clout of Latino Voters Nationwide
Pew Hispanic Center - Hispanics and Arizona’s New Immigration Law
America's Voice - The Power of the Latino Vote in the 2010 Elections: They Tipped Elections in 2008; Where Will They Be in 2010?