Since the release of the draft of the American Power Act (APA or Kerry-Lieberman), ACEEE has been looking at the industrial provisions in the bill. A lot of uncertainties exist about what the final legislation will look like, such as the understanding that the bill will include the ACELA energy bill (see ACEEE's assessment and summary of the energy efficiency provisions). Based on our review of the bill's industrial provisions, a couple of important manufacturing elements emerge:
1) the carbon caps for direct emissions do not go into effect until 2016, allowing the industry a three year transition period from when caps go into effect on the electric sector.
2) during this 3-year period, 0.5% of total allowances go to fund Sec. 451-453 of EISA (see ACEEE's analysis of EISA), which: provide grants and loans for CHP and waste energy recovery; industry specific research and technical assistance including the IACs; and energy efficiency in data centers. The ACELA provisions expand and refine these provisions, so there could be some important interactions.
3) Energy-Intensive, Trade-Exposed Industries receive 15% of allowances from 2016-2025, ramping down beginning in 2026.
4) the industrial portion of the electric local distribution allocation is explicitly directed to go to that sector.
ACEEE thinks these are important new provisions, and represent perhaps the one bright spot in an otherwise disappointing bill.
ACEEE will have a detailed analysis of all the energy efficiency provisions in APA in a few weeks.
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