House passes Clean Energy bill

The American Clean Energy and Security Act passed in the House of Representatives by a narrow margin of votes, 219-212. Nonetheless, this marks a move towards making a change in America, rather than politics as usual. And it is a victory for President Obama, who considers this bill one of his current top goals since it was a campaign pledge.

The bill, as most of this nature are, is rather comprehensive and therefore complex. But in a nutshell, its primary theme is aimed at the world climate, and is considered to slow the amount of global warming by capping carbon pollution and charging companies that pollute, while striving to make clean energy cheaper and allow for a wider profit margin. By doing so, it will create new energy-related research and development jobs, as well as inevitably lead to the formation of new energy companies or new divisions of existing companies. Obama clearly calls this a "jobs bill."

The Republicans have countered calling it an existing jobs killer and an energy tax. It is reported that Warren Buffet concurs that this should be considered a huge new tax. Regarding how it will affect the American public, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the results of this bill will end up costing the average household an additional $175 a year.

A contributing factor to why the bill passed in the House is the broad-based sectors support. Besides House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy Pelosi and the Democratic party, the bill has received some unlikely support from power companies, labor unions that include those of polluting companies (i.e. steel), large corporations, and even the agricultural sector.

Part of the general opposing argument was that by penalizing companies that pollute in the United States, they would move operations to countries that do not have such penalties. But the bill also includes stipulations to invoke a tariff on products from countries that don't start to reduce their carbon footprint by a certain date. In Obama's words, the bill is "balanced and sensible."

Before the vote, House Minority Leader John BoehnerJohn Boehner of Ohio stated, "This will be a defining moment and a defining vote in this Congress." How prophetic those words have become.