The House Energy and Commerce Committee announced the details of an agreement on a compromise version of the American Clean Energy & Security Act, a comprehensive clean energy and climate plan.

With the full committee markup set to begin on Monday May 18th, it’s not too late for you to express your support for the environment by writing your congressperson.

In a preliminary analysis released on April 22, 2009, the EPA endorsed the original plan, before any compromise was made. “‘The Waxman-Markey Discussion Draft transforms the structure of energy production and consumption, moving the U.S. to a clean energy economy.’ The modeling projects that the economy will grow robustly while America deploys clean energy technology, increases energy efficiency, and cuts global warming pollution.”

Under this agreement, energy-intensive industries that compete in global markets will be provided incentives to improve their energy efficiency, as well as assistance to address the costs of transitioning to a clean energy economy. These incentives will be based on the amount of domestic production.

• 15% of allowances in 2014 will be distributed to U.S. manufacturers that are in energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries.

• Manufacturers will receive allowances based on the average carbon emissions from the sector, scaled by the manufacturer's U.S. production.

• To provide adequate transition time, the industries will receive allowances through 2025, at which time the President will determine whether they are still needed.

After giving Chairmen Harvey Waxmen and Edward Markey due credit for their efforts in reaching the agreement, Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director said, “But it is clear that Big Oil, Big Coal and other polluters are still holding out for a Congressional bailout. They will continue to try to riddle this legislation with loopholes, water it down, and load it up with hundreds of billions of dollars in giveaways. They don't want it to deliver a recovery fueled by the clean energy jobs that America needs."

Indeed it’s hard to find justification for watering down the bill at all. The EPA analysis found that the costs of the bill, even under the original discussion draft, would be low. And the potential upside is extremely high.

• The United States would double the amount of electricity from zero or low carbon sources by 2030, as opposed to the business-as-usual approach.

• Advanced carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology would come online by 2015 to 2020 and lead to 17 gigawatts of new and retrofitted CCS coal-fired generation by 2025, as opposed to zero CCS in the absence of legislation.

• The rate of renewable energy deployment would increase by 150% by 2030. Renewables would deploy even more quickly as a result of the renewable electricity standard

The EPA also predicted that the economy would grow robustly while cutting pollution. The nation’s gross domestic product would grow significantly, from about $15 trillion in 2015 to about $23 trillion in 2030, while deploying clean energy technology and reducing global warming pollution. At the same time, the average household purchasing power would grow as well.

The critical period for this legislation has just begun. It is feared that corporate special interests will do everything in their power to minimize the effectiveness of the bill if not derail it completely.

"These polluters are trying to strangle the clean energy economy in its cradle, steal the benefits of the clean energy future from the American people, and keep us addicted to oil and dirty coal," said Pope. "As this bill moves through the many remaining steps in the legislative process, we will work to strengthen this bill, so that it meets President Obama's challenge to Congress and the American people. Only a bill which accomplishes these three things can really jumpstart the green recovery, build the clean energy future, and end our addiction to oil and coal:

• Dramatically ramp up America's transition to cleaner, cheaper energy sources like wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal

• Slash energy waste in order to cut emissions quickly and cheaply, while saving consumers money on their energy bills

• Close the carbon pollution loophole and make polluters pay for the carbon pollution they emit"

We can only succeed in our mission to protect the Earth if congress is willing to give us the tools. We have the technology, now it's time to put the funding in the right place and invest in green technologies! We need to start living eco-friendly (sustainable) lifestyles!

We need to start thinking about the future of humankind! And we need to do everything we can to make sure we keep the natural world intact and beautiful, so it can be enjoyed for countless generations and millenia to come!

Sometimes we need a shove in a good direction: Toward Sustainability, Toward Peace, and Toward Justice For the Earth and For All Living Creatures! Congress has already start to begin to do good for the earth, now it's just time to follow through, and finish cleaning up the mess that has been made by the environmentally globally unconscious in the past.