renewables

One of the environmental movement’s biggest accomplishments over the past decade has been convincing states to adopt so-called renewable portfolio standards (RPS). RPS require a state’s energy supply to diversify, gradually shifting away from fossil fuels and towards renewable sources like geothermal, wind and solar.

At least 30 states now have these measures which set deadlines to ensure that a certain amount -- sometimes as much as 40 percent -- of energy consumed in the state comes from renewable sources. As climate change, air pollution and the broad-based political attacks on renewable sources of energy grow worse by the day, these RPS are more crucial than ever.

But they’re in jeopardy.

State legislatures have introduced a handful of bills over the past year seeking to repeal state RPS altogether or to expand the definition of renewable energy in ways that will weaken their climate change benefits. In the past several months, two major conservative groups -- the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform  -- said they plan a full-scale legislative push to remove the mandates.