Clean energy and climate policy for U.S. growth and job creation: an economic assessment of the American Clean Energy and Security Act and the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humanity in the 21st century. Without determined global action to reduce atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions over the next four decades, scientific evidence suggests that carbon-intensive patterns of economic growth run a high risk of dangerously altering the earth’s climate system. As a leader in energy technology development and history’s largest contributor of greenhouse gases, the United States has an essential leadership role to play in international efforts to mitigate climate change. Exemplifying this leadership, a detailed federal plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the American Clean Energy Security Act (ACES), was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives in March and passed in June 2009. This analysis provides the most up-todate state-by-state examination of the economic implications of this kind of comprehensive federal climate policy.