It's Official: N.E. Clean Fuels Standard Is a Win for the Environment, Businesses and Jobs

Yesterday, it became official: 11 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states officially published an economic analysis of a Clean Fuels Standard (CFS) for the region, following a leak of the report earlier in the week.

The CFS would promote investment in transportation fuels cleaner than gasoline and diesel, leading to less pollution, new business opportunities and more American jobs.

Specifically, as described in posts earlier this week (here and here), the study shows that the CFS could:

• Create up to 50,000 jobs annually
• Increase personal disposable income in the region by up to $3.2 billion
• Grow our state economies by up to nearly $30 billion dollars
• Reduce our region's dependence on oil by as much as 29 percent
• Reduce harmful air pollution that causes climate change up to 9 percent

The CFS would achieve these results with a market signal that drives down carbon pollution from today’s oil-based fuels by 10 percent over 10 years toward cleaner alternatives like electricity, natural gas and advanced biofuels.

This is good news for the business community, job-seekers in the region, environmental advocates and all of us who want America to become less dependent on oil for our energy.

That’s why this news has been welcomed by business leaders and investors focused on a more sustainable future. A group of forward-thinking investors comprising the Ceres Investor Network, for example, notes that the standards would provide market clarity for directing investments into clean energy and delivering long-term monetary value.

And veterans heralded the Clean Fuels Standard as good for our national security because it will help cut our oil dependence and carbon pollution. Further, it will help the U.S. stop sending a billion dollars each day overseas for oil and instead invest it at home.

Meanwhile, who are the naysayers of a cleaner and stronger path forward? Predictably, it’s the industries that want to protect their own multibillion dollar dirty fuel profits at our expense – the oil companies, whose views are often represented by a front group called the Consumer Energy Alliance. This group has been most prominently involved in promoting dirtier fuels like tar sands that risk our security and climate – which a CFS will help us move away from.

The CFS can growth the economy and help the planet. We can’t let the oil companies decide our future. It’s time for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states to continue the push forward and demand cleaner transportation fuels for our health, our economy and our national security.