The next ten and half months hold little promise of Congress producing a coherent national clean energy strategy.  The same legislative gridlock over the federal budget that stalled debate on key issues last year looks to come back in force this year as well. But that doesn’t mean high-impact clean energy policy can’t be implemented.  Take for example, Congressman Charles Bass’s (R-NH) recently introduced Smart Energy Act – a bipartisan bill aimed at leveraging the federal government’s 445,000...

Xi Jinping, China’s leader-in-waiting and incumbent vice-president, is being given a grand welcome to the United States this week. The Financial Times notes that “no previous China vice-president has received a 19-gun salute or an Oval Office meeting with the president.” However, while the Obama administration has made a point of confronting Xi on hot-button issues like human rights and North Korea, much more needs to be said on the issue of China’s mercantilist clean energy policies. The fact...

President Obama backed up his call to “double-down” on clean energy during the State of the Union address by proposing to boost key energy innovation investments in his FY2013 federal budget request. Compared to the FY2012 Omnibus Appropriations bill, the President’s FY2013 proposal would increase top-line investments in key DOE energy innovation-related Offices and programs by 6.98 percent or $578 million.  It’s a strong statement of support for developing affordable and viable clean energy technologies...

A debate has been boiling over China’s current command over the extraction and export of rare earth metals critical to the function of a variety of high-tech products.  This debate seems to be kicking into a higher gear as a result of the WTO case against China’s export restraints on several popular industrial materials, possibly preceding the establishment of a WTO precedent for ruling on international export of “critical materials.”  In particular, China’s tremendous influence over the market...

By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Jesse Jenkins, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Breakthrough Institute  It is time to take stock of our current climate trajectory, and consider what it means for climate policy. In Part 1 of this week long series, we argued that our current climate trajectory means we must 1) redouble efforts to reduce CO2 emissions as quickly as possible, and 2) we must proactively build resilience...

Stephen Ezell, Matt Stepp, and Rob Atkinson contributed to this summary. The President mentioned many issues ITIF focuses on in his State of the Union address last night. And by in large, we agree with what he said when it comes to economic competitiveness. The President deserves praise for putting these issues, specifically manufacturing, front and center. He helped rally the nation and the Congress to the fact that restoration of competitiveness and a vibrant manufacturing sector are, indeed...

By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Jesse Jenkins, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Breakthrough Institute It is time to take stock of our current climate trajectory, and consider what it means for climate policy. In Part 1 of this week long series, we argued that our current climate trajectory means we must 1) redouble efforts to reduce CO2 emissions as quickly as possible, and 2) we must proactively build resilience...

By Matthew Stepp, Clean Energy Policy Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and Jesse Jenkins, Director of Climate and Energy Policy at the Breakthrough Institute Significantly limiting humanity’s impact on the global climate is quite simply an enormous task. Unfortunately, thanks to budget austerity and federal gridlock, any hope of implementing sweeping U.S. climate/energy policy has been optimistically pushed back to 2013 or beyond (though some incremental improvement...

In a new report released today, Lew Milford, President of the Clean Energy Group and Mark Muro, Policy Director at the Brookings Metropolitan Program discuss an underreported, but key state clean energy policy – public clean energy investment funds.  These funds are investment vehicles for clean energy projects backed by dedicated revenue streams such as ratepayer electricity surcharges, RPS compliance payments, bonds, and other taxes. And these funds are leveraging a significant amount of public...

Here are some of the top clean energy innovation-related news stories, analysis, and commentary from the last week (and some from the holiday break): Emerging innovations key to driving down cost of clean energy in 2012 and beyond. McKinsey Quarterly (reg. req.) provides its top 5 clean tech innovations to watch in 2012 including next-gen utility-scale storage, advanced ICT-enabled power conversion systems, new energy efficient air conditioning and window technologies, $2/gallon algae-based fuels...