If states serve as what Justice Louis Brandeis called "laboratories of democracy," their lab benches are increasingly crowded with energy experiments.
Last week, Gov. Rendell urged the legislature to move Pennsylvania into the thick of the action, saying energy issues "affect our basic economic health and our national security" and, at the same time, offer tremendous economic opportunity to the state.
Rendell said Pennsylvania was already on track to become a leader in renewable energy and biofuels, a sector he said drew $71 billion in worldwide investment last year, up 43 percent from the year before.
The first boost came in 2004, when Pennsylvania adopted its Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, a law that requires the state's utilities, by 2020, to get 8 percent of their electricity from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power.
Now, Rendell wants to put money where the state's mouth is: He is proposing an $850 million Energy Independence Fund, much of it to be spent on seed money or loans to attract alternative-energy manufacturers to Pennsylvania, and is pushing other initiatives to promote energy efficiency and renewables.
The governor's proposals have faced resistance since he offered them in February, especially in the Republican-controlled Senate. Some critics say his plan to finance the energy fund with a fee on electricity bills - averaging $5.40 a year per household, by Rendell's math - amounts to an unacceptable new tax. Others say the alternative-energy incentives interfere with the market by "picking winners and losers."
But with oil prices recently topping $80 a barrel and energy issues increasingly on the national agenda, Rendell says the time is ripe to vault Pennsylvania into "the top tier of states leading America's response to the energy challenges we face."
