My friend Peter Fusaro has been studying the best ways to practically implement a more sane energy policy for years. Here’s a plan he is presenting to the Obama camp to help green up his energy policy.

1. Decoupling: Remove the link between utility profits and volume of electricity they sell nationwide.
Give electric utilities incentives to sell energy efficiency and make energy efficiency a profit center,
thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This policy has already been implemented in California.
2. Plant 1 billion trees like the Civilian Conservation Corps under FDR. Trees absorb carbon dioxide.
Create a national tree planting corp.
3. Promote more compact fluorescent lights (CFL) and light emitting diode (LED) lamp deployment and
environmentally sound disposal. Wal‐Mart sold 145 million CFL lamps last year which led to the
avoidance of building 3 coal‐fired plants. It is a simple consumer choice issue and more sales will
drive costs down.
4. Incent energy conservation in buildings coupled with greenhouse gas credits. Buildings represent
nearly 50% of US greenhouse gas emissions. Policies to promote more energy efficient materials,
reflective roofs and utilization of renewable energy will have a disproportionate impact on
nationwide emissions goals. The building sector should also be allowed to generate greenhouse gas
emissions credits from energy reduction measures.
5. Push a national incentive program for plug‐in hybrids to transition the 250 million conventional cars
and trucks to cleaner and more efficient technologies. The infrastructure already exists for gasoline
and diesel so leverage that infrastructure, not biofuels. Normally, it takes 17 years to turn over that
fleet of vehicles and this must be accelerated, which could help the U.S. auto industry and the
environment. Major benefits in energy security by reducing oil imports and benefits in greenhouse
gas reductions by attacking tailpipe emissions.
6. Mass retirement of the gasoline clunkers and replacement with plug‐and‐play hybrids on a national
scale: create American jobs and reduce oil dependency and greenhouse gas emissions.
7. Boost CAFÉ to 50 miles per gallon.
8. Dedicate federal funds on an equivalent scale to the federal highway budget towards modernizing
and upgrading our national electricity grid to remove bottlenecks and increase capacity for
renewable energy generation, in particular from the solar‐rich Southwest and the wind‐rich Central
plains states.
9. Immediately mandate a national greenhouse gas emissions registry, utilizing the existing Climate
Registry. We can only manage what we can measure, and a federal registry of emissions from all
feasible sources in the economy provides the backbone of all types of carbon regulation, whether
cap‐and‐trade or carbon taxes/fees. Starting a registry today can be done in parallel with debate
over legislation in Congress, and will help speed the rollout of any final climate legislation. Under
the DOE is there is a registry called Section 1605 (b), but it has no teeth and has been involved in
endless policy debates. Make EPA the repository of such a registry not DOE.
10. Push for increased efficiency of use of water resources. Water accounts for as much as 15% of
energy consumption in many parts of the country; by increasing efficiency through water
conservation and recycling measures, we can dramatically cut our energy consumption and preserve
a scarce resource that is starting to become the next crisis issue.