When they were invented in the ’90s, renewable energy certificates were meant to stimulate the green energy market. Back then, building wind and solar farms was way more expensive than it is today. The idea was that renewable energy producers could sell certificates that represented the “greenness” of the energy they made. Anyone buying those certificates, or RECs, could claim that green power and also claim they were helping the environment.
For years, corporations have bought RECs as a low-commitment way to claim they’re “going green” – all while using the same old fossil fuel-powered electricity. So how exactly do RECs help the climate crisis? This week, Reveal investigates RECs and finds that the federal government uses them to pad its environmental stats.
Reveal’s Will Evans starts with Auden Schendler, the man in charge of sustainability at Aspen Skiing Co. Schendler initially convinced his company to buy RECs to go green, then realized he made a mistake. But even after he spoke out and evidence piled up showing that RECs were ineffective, other companies kept buying them – and the federal government did, too. Evans and Reveal’s Melissa Lewis determined that since 2010, more than half of what the government has claimed as renewable energy was just cheap RECs.
Next, Reveal’s Najib Aminy takes us to Palm Beach County, Florida, to find out where some RECs are made: in a trash incinerator. Amid all the sounds and smells of burning garbage, Aminy looks into whether buying RECs actually helps the environment and where the money goes. He meets Andrew Byrd, who lives nearby and worries about the fumes. It turns out that federal agencies bought RECs from this incinerator in order to meet renewable energy mandates.
Finally, we explore another place where the government buys RECs: two biomass plants in Georgia, where residents complained of toxic pollution. Evans looks into where the government’s modest environmental goals come from and why federal agencies buy RECs in the first place. He also talks to a REC industry veteran and examines how a plan from the Biden administration could change things.
Support Reveal’s journalism at Revealnews.org/donatenow
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get the scoop on new episodes at Revealnews.org/newsletter
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Reveal is brought to you by progressive we're drivers who save by switching save nearly seven hundred dollars on average, quote now at progressive dot com, progressive casualty, insurance company and affiliates national average twelve month savings of six hundred ninety eight dollars by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between June twenty twenty one and may twenty twenty two potential savings will vary
from the centre for investigative reporting mp are ex. This is reveal I'm alison
no matter what your looking for in a ski vacation been snowman has you cover
Colorado is a ski town, a snow sport paradigm,
I had no idea how big no mass was. This obvious everything we just road was psychologists have been sick, but apparently we're going somewhere. Sicker we're just sick here in the rockies and spin skiing company operates for different resorts that all you
a lot of power. The person who worries about where that electricity comes from is auden schindler, you're running ski left, you're running.
Holdings you're, making snow odin is in charge of sustainability for the company and back into
Six he made waves by making it the first ski resort in the country to go one hundred percent green- that was after years of effort at first
odin, tried installing solar panels and energy efficient light bulbs around the resort, but
wasn't making enough of a difference, so he turned to another option that would cover the whole resort and was way less work
Well, your digging around saying hey: how can I buy clean energy? This was the way you buy clean energy with a renewable energy certificate. A renewable energy certificate also known as
back, we'll get to how they work and a little bit. But for now would you need to know is on both the aspen skiing company could claim it cleaned up its dirty electricity and arden became something of a clean energy. Darling time magazine called him
a climate crusader in his work was being nationally recognized. I want to do
You got no word from the epa local papers covered it and
we got accolades. It was definitely under a year that I realized tat. I had made a mistake
the more I looked into how rex worked the less? He believed they did anything. So we did something
really not supposed to do as a corporate executive admit that the good things you claim to the public might not be true. I was branded semi insane bomb through our own spoke out to the press. He was feature
in a business week article exposing rex, ass quote little green lies that magazine
Nordic almost cost me my job people were like what the hell is wrong with you. I got bra
in front of senior management and people saying what were you thinking? That was all back in two thousand seven fifteen years ago, but rex
the thing on was ring. The alarm bells about companies are still buying them today. In fact, they are one of the easiest and cheapest ways for companies to apply
more green than they actually are reveals. Will evans looks into why this to one that was debunked years ago is still flourishing. Today,.
it was two thousand six and going green was all the rage. Each one of us is a cause of global warming, but each of us can make choices to change that
with the movie and inconvenient truth had just come hours. It was AL gore's documentary
About global warming, the solutions are in our hands. We just have to have the determination to make them happen. There was a surge of public interest and climate change and how to fight it, even
stage during hollywood's biggest night. Ladies and gentlemen, rights nominated, leonardo, dicaprio and vice president Al Gore. This is a special announcement made at the two thousand. Seven oscars tonight were proud to announce that, for the first time in the history of the oscars, this shows officially gone green.
many of the green energy claims that the time involved, the purchase of wrecks the environmental protection agency was promoting them as an easy way to go green and awarding companies for buying tons of wrecks with renewable energy certificates. Also known, as rex
You can purchase renewable power and help the renewable energy market to grow. This is from an epa promotional, video,
So how can a consumer like you know that the power using his from renewable resources?
That's where renewable energy certificates come in each wreck represents a unit of renewable energy that was produced and pumped into the grid. Somewhere.
a few by the wreck. You are now the owner of that green power, like the name suggests,
Renewable energy certificate is just a certificate.
when you buy one you're, really just buying a piece of paper or a pdf and that certificate represents in fear
We won green megawatt. Our rex allow you to claim that the elect
you use,
from a renewable resource with low
four zero emissions and making that claim is not very expensive breaks or cheat. They can cost anywhere from several dollars.
Just around a buck each depending on where they come from and when they were made. So if your business guzzling electric
no matter where you getting your power from you can pay a relatively small sum to say, or one hundred per cent green. For instance, you could offset the electricity use of the average american home
for a whole year with just around eleven rex, but wait, there's more rex,
Are you to claim renewable energy without having to install a single solar panel or wind turbine
or change any of your energy habits. It's bad easy rex really do make a difference by buying right
your providing revenue to support renewable energy projects, but it's not like the green energy you're claiming helped power. Your toaster turn on your fan
you can be in california and owner wreck maiden. Georgia totally disconnected from your actual energy, is the whole point of red
so to incentivize more renewable energy. When they were invent.
Back in the nineties. Building wind and solar power
arms way more expensive than it is today
The idea was that Rex could create another revenue stream for
Opel energy producers, wind in solar farms, could make
honey from selling their energy and from selling rex.
additional money would motivate them to produce even more green energy itself.
A good and you couldn't square the circle of getting your company clean electricity any other way. There was no other way short of
building your own giant generation plant when
farm, solar farm or whatever, and because they weren't about to build a giant wind or solar farm. Odin schindler convinced his bosses in aspen scheme company to buy rex more than twenty thousand of them and with those certificates the resort could claim that it.
Offset one hundred percent of its electricity use with renewable energy, but nothing had changed.
how they were using power or where it was coming from the rex he bought covered the energy use of force, key areas, three hotels to athletic complexes and a golf course, and they only cause forty two thousand dollars a tiny fraction,
of the company's entire energy budget. If something is so cheap as to be almost free, that means it has no value. You know it was like economics, one or one these, so I'm buying what it costs me. Almost nothing
to do basically the hardest thing in civilization. You know d carbonizing is what we have to do as a society, and it was only a few box. You can't be right out and starts asking around he hears from some friends in the field that yet they don't think that rex do anything. So he turns to the people who sell the racks peppering them with questions. How are the right
see, bought actually making a difference to wind farms. How is this purchase creating more renewable energy? Later I got it.
Some really in your face conversations with rack cells, from where I said,
I want you to show me that this wreck caused the creation of clean power. Well on you. Can you know this? Is a complicated
industry and those are Margaret did my purchase
these emissions in the world. The way you are claiming
Can you show me and when they couldn't
Hoddan was sure rex, where a scam. Now he could have kept his mouth shut and continued to claim that his ski resort was green. But when a business week reporter asked him questions for a story about
rex in two thousand seven odd in didn't hold back. He basically admitted that his own companies, one hundred percent renewable energy, claim, was an empty boast. People were like what the hell is wrong with you, and I was saying: look I'm trying to do this thing transparently and we're not succeeding, but I got brought in front of senior management and people saying what were you thinking? How did you get in trouble, but first I, when it happened, I got a call and it was the head of a jar and his eye taken. We talk on Monday and I was like what are you talking about. Then I get back to my office. All my furniture had been removed as if you ve been fired. Now it turned out that both of those things were a joke by the cfo.
I, who is my friend- and it was I pop, but then I got grilled in front of senior management by the ceo and it wasn't like it wasn't a joke. Hoddan didn't end up losing his job and he kept spreading the
What about rex joining a small but growing number of vocal critics? Several studies came out showing that
I don't actually lead to more renewable energy. You look at it empirically and enters no its not having an impact,
michael gilan water. As a founding director of the greenhouse gas management institute, a nonprofit focused on carbon accounting, he spent more than fifteen years studying emissions and he says there is no proof that these Rex have helped with any.
expansion of renewable energy. There really is no noticeable,
in the mouth of solar
when farm investment because of this kind of voluntary certificate market- the rex we ve been talking about- are these cheap ones, ones that common
You can buy voluntarily on the open market that are sold separate from any actual electricity there.
are better ways of buying renewable energy, and there are rex that are more effective, but the market for cheap and ineffective rex has just continued to grow.
And that's been helped along by one big player. The government essentially bless this activity and it really took off because now epa says it's good is fine.
like we can say, we're green. We can say we're not admitting anything, because now we can use as much electricity as we want, no matter how dirty it is and if we just buy some certificates now, all of a sudden we're clean. We are absolved of responsibility for climate change, okay, so these rock
have been shown to be a pretty useless tool for making meaningful progress against climate change. Though I have heard from people who support the wreck market. That is better than nothing
right, you know what really matters is like is less greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and, unfortunately, you know this particular approach is not working
meanwhile, the climate crisis has become more and more dire, droughts, fires, floods, storms and other deadly climate related disasters are getting worse. Scientists now think that in the next decade will pass the critical one point: five degrees.
celsius mark, after which the effects of global warming become increasingly catastrophic, and us
John fishing milestone this week. It was the hardest day since some time in the last interglacial period, a hundred and
Ninety five thousand years ago, earth reaching its high temperature on record for a fourth day in a row, were run
out of time and there's all this.
Third and money going into something that doesn't work. I've had people in the policy area and non profit say to me I say: hey what you're doing it's not solving climate and
in response I got was what we gotta do something, and am I what are you talking about like if you,
No. The thing isn't gonna work. You have to do something else you can just keep.
Doing the thing that doesn't work these days, Auden doesn't get treated as a semi insane bomb. Thrower more companies acknowledged that buying
bex is an effective than say they're moving away from them. And now are you, like. I told you, so I try not to do too much of that, but yeah it's it's. It was so obvious, but here's the thing I told you so but nothing's changed there are still corporations are still buying rocks. The market hasn't changed. What, if our to tell you that the federal government buys cheap racks to fulfill its renewable energy goals? Yes, I I know I know that's happening. Does that surprise you at all when you're talking to a guy
You know, there's a couple people who have blown the whistle on us, so you talking other guy blew the whistle on it. So I know I'm not shock, but it still happening. Twenty twenty three is a federal guff yet, and it is
fraud on a national scale and its waste of taxpayers money. That's
astounding and offer an here's, the kicker its being done by well intentioned people.
the federal government buys millions of wrecks to meet its sustainability targets, cheap rack spot with taxpayers money, so the government can appear more green than it actually is, in fact, since twenty ten
more than half of what the government has claimed as renewable energy was just cheap racks and some of the places where the government buys certificates are pretty questionable. How hot is it in their right, there's, probably about
fifteen hundred degrees, Fahrenheit most people, say if I could see Hell. This is what it would look like will take you into the inferno,
where some of those rex- or maybe that's next on review.
I may sound biased here, but I think our stories are pretty great and if you listening to this, I have a feeling that well, you might agree, but have you ever been left wanting even more reveals newsletter goes behind the scenes. Reporters describe how they first found out about these stories and the challenges they face, reporting
plus recommended reeds and more subscribe now reveal news, dot, org, slash newsletter.
From the centre for investigative reporting in p r ex this is reveal a mallet in close your eyes and unless you're driving then keep them open. But if you're not close your eyes now, when you hear the term renewable energy, what comes to my? Maybe europe?
during a pastoral landscape, hills to the horizon, dotted with windmills the blades spinning in sync, or maybe your imagining a harsh desert expanse with row after row,
solar panels mirroring the rays of the sun, but there are other forms of renewable
energy on the market?
There are made in ways that, while they don't seem so green, some call it
the disney wrought of trash take, for example, this place in palm beach county floored. I call it a pity that it has
bottomless appetite, gorging on all the garbage dump in palm beach county each year. It's a trash incinerator in it produces rex
those renewable energy certificates. You just heard about some of the cheapest ones on the market in twenty twenty, two, multiple federal agencies, but rex from this place,
and use them to meet their renewable energy mandates.
It looks like this,
I'm kind of landfill. To my left, our
the ball. That's! What's? Let's call that six seven stories,
I guess this is where trash goes too
into energy. Her we sent reveals
the gmo meaning to the so called disneyworld of trash. He starts us off on the ground floor, so there
there are ten floors and this elevator. Well, yes, ok!
as soon as I walked into elevator, that's what I got the with sand. Smells like money to be like money are interesting, interesting right here:
is the smell, is part of the tour, but for my guy.
Ray shower. It's all just a matter perspective. This is
probably the most a different part of the facility right now, but never been in a landfill and smell of natural gas. This is very, very mild. Compared to that ray is one of the brains. Behind this whole trash turned renewable energy facility. He helped
design and oversee the construction of this entire plan, now
images, it's operations,
and you ve been here how, on a little over twenty years now you have a good sense of how this all works.
Also hear yeah me to meet you. Ok, let's let me ok. So, where we had it, it might be the safety vest or the way he has.
His hardhat to the side or how his pen is clipped just below the third button of his polo shirt rate looks the part of an engineer but really he's like an orchestra conductor. He's got to make sure this entire complex runs smoothly in harmony. The this musical piece starts with a convoy of trucks packed with trash from all over palm beach county rotten food, diapers old clothes,
construction, debris, plastic bags, styrofoam, you name it those trucks empty of thousands of tonnes of garbage day into a massive go about twenty,
if five thousand tons of palm counties county's garbage right there. Next three giant clause,
all of them capable of holding nine tonnes of garbage and each grass said through the weights. Then these files are dry
intelligent and pushed into a furnace
the we're looking at the flames from the embassy, what a waste, how hot is it in there wait, there's probably about fifteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit most people say this is this is what I could see. Hell is what it would look like now,
making energy at a burn. Trash is not as easy as lighting it on fire. There are a lot of toxic byproducts that must be accounted for, lead, mercury, particulate matter and other chemical compounds that are harmful to people and to help
limit. All that this facility has an intricate apparatus of cables and piping more than
Four hundred miles away.
Under us. Now. One of this year is all year: air pollution control equipment. You get a sense of the scale.
oh, and the the importance and the function of this office equipment. This is the sound of air being moved around besides the sound of air being purified. Yes, this whole opera,
patient, produces a melody region, texture, but poor and rhythm, and interrupted with the occasion
solar
This is no john cage or minutes, and thirty three seconds
the untrained year. It sounds like chaos, but to re
I now sounds pretty good. Everything sounds like it's worker right, but the thing I'm really here for
the grand finale to this entire musical peace. Is the steam produced from burning all this garbage and where
Esteem ultimately goes. This is where, where steam comes, to turn to turban, the turban connected to the generator and the generator makes the electricity in this building. This is where the electricity is made physically. Getting me yes, the this is how a wreck is born with each
new megawatt hour of electricity made a new wreck is now available for purchase
since last year.
incinerator has sold more than one point? Six million were noble energy certificates and in a given year, this in
Generator can generate enough electricity to light up forty five thousand homes. It's not as much as say a coal power plant, but for landfill
it's still a substantial amount of electricity. I mean this is traffic.
Turn into energy. This is the steam that be
ash burning made. This theme is making the turban turn in turn and turning the generator renewable energy. Yes, absolutely is this the future
I believe so, nor no, it shouldn't be yes,
but not. Everyone believes in the disneyworld of trash the way, raiders pennies and waste
doktor. Martin Luther king jr boulevard fort dixie highway. President Barack obama highway. If that's not florida for you, I had a few more,
east to riviera beach, where you only see the gaudy, mansions, fine, art, studios or panoramic view
the atlantic ocean that have come to define palm beach county. No here you get a different kind of trifecta like an industrial park, a port
and a power plant. Everything in one big area is right. Here is the old is
neighbourhood regard for andrew bird. This right here is home.
Andrew knows a neighborhood, well asylum.
Living here most of his life. He also spent
several years working locally as a city planner.
And he's seen allowed change happen here, every child. I grew up words in school right back here
I use the word their own economic and military and in walk across the field, which was nothing with sand dunes
this entire families.
I don't see any sandy, and here you are you're, not gonna, see maybe
fanny everything is paved over.
Poland area now is so different that same as it used to be at all live
For how long have I been here,
I was eight years old. I'm seventeen now think. I told you that you look twenty one. Don't worry! Thank you.
There are some changes that andrew just can't get used to russia go he's described. The smell me
It's almost like it has some waste in it. It has a lot of like burnt height burnt plastic pipe,
oh my god, and you got all those bags from groceries giver
rose on fire mail, just like this, the grocery bag. This thing is awful for what it
I could smell what andrew was talking about and it was exactly as he described it like a faint industrial musk there. It is again tomorrow at twelve noon,
what fires me or is something burning in now I can smell an arrow in you. You you you're. Always conscious of this is a fire that kind of smell you you actually.
up and go in check and wondering ways as more coming from
andrews. Certain the smell is coming
from the incinerator. He says he's followed the smell to it that the smell appeal,
At the same time, the incinerator started operating now. Tracking smells is an imperfect science. It's hard to prove exactly words coming from palm beach county. Doesn't
of air quality monitors near the incinerator or at riviera beach and while the solid
waste authority tracks emissions from the incinerator? It also doesn't have any air quality monitors around the site or the county, but not everyone agrees with andrew
do. You talk to some people who live much closer to the incinerator. Who say what smell Donald guns
when is a retired insurance executive who lives in a private golf
about a mile away from the plan, and these are big fan. I smell nothing. It is the best thing that has happened to us, I'm absolutely thrilled that they did what they
and no complaints, none not a single complaint
I didn't smell anything when I visited donald, but I did find complaints file
to the solid waste authority about odors, some from
our own neighbours some will have just a few houses away. I know
but smell is- and I know what smell Isn'T- I'd never ever
bothered by any odors. I cannot imagine what else they would
We complain about because, as far as I'm concerned, the process
of getting rid of our waste and getting something in return makes all the sentinel
even the solid waste authority acknowledges on its website that there are smells from the landfill and they have taken steps to mitigate them.
Smell or no smell. In sooner.
here's across the country had been criticized for releasing something works. Pollutants like lead, mercury, particulate matter and other toxic chemicals.
Even with those four hundred miles of cables and piping.
since in order still emitting pollutants, including higher rates.
Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides than an average power plant in high concentrations both are known to cause respiratory issues and then there's the carbon emissions,
The solid waste authority says more greenhouse gases would be released it. The trash was left to rot instead of burned, but this plan still produced hundreds of thousands of tat.
of co2 in twenty twenty one alone. That's because burning things like plastics still creates greenhouse gases.
which is why the environmental protection agency doesn't consider burning,
crash, a source of green power. Even so,
This incinerator cells brags. Those were new.
Will energy certificates rex that government agencies by to offset their own energy use rex they use to claim that their green? I explained all this to andrew and asked what he thought do you believe the energy being produced
at that waste site, europe is helping solve the broader climate change. Remove the problem re aiding a worse environmental problem, even if they're selling recs yeah, I think it's a false economy that the no
to have rights is a false economy. I could tell you a thousand ways you could have generated the same amount of power, then break.
the trash, the slow for god's sake, and still the federal government bought hundreds of thousands of wrecks from this site in two thousand and twenty to the departments.
Agriculture, commerce and energy, along with a national institutes of health. The? U s heir
there's a nasa all bought rex from here back
My time I want to see what the solid waste authority was getting out of it in a given year. Rex help the facility make up
about seven thousand year? Eighty thousand higher seventy five
thousand, plus or minus the end
generator had been going about its business burning trash for years until
Some wreck sellers came along with the prospect of easy money. The insane
it has started, selling them and twenty twenty two seven years after the plant first opened ok, soap, rex, bringing plus or minus a hundred seventy five k a year
it sure sounds like a lot, but how does it compared to the total cost to run the facility
the facility itself costs about twenty eight.
Twenty nine million dollars a year to run
well, it's the hundred and seventy thousand verses, so baby, one percent pennies in a bucket yeah. But it's it's still pennies,
penny's raise says. The money made from selling wrecks helps lower the costs for ratepayers, in this case residents of palm beach county who just want to get their trash dealt with by raise calculation. This saves each customer about eighteen cents a year, eighteen cents, if you're a palm beach county resident, try not to spend all that money at once, but let's go back to the original intent of the wreck. When they were created back in the nineties,
They were supposed to help green energy producers make more money more money that would leave them to generate more renewable energy. So if Rex work the way they were supposed to somehow this extra
Cash would be leading to more renewable energy acts in theory, but again in Prague
This money that you're getting from the rex is going towards any additional creation of a potential future site
going into our general reserve account. I believe right now or general revenue count, so Rex didn't contribute to any additional
being energy. The incinerator is operating as it would have breaks, or no rex
it's just another way to make money
and in reality not that much money and most of the money
is going to someone else.
know who's buying your ex mean from the broker. Now do you want to know? I do, but it for right now, at that,
I would like to be very interesting to know because maybe
could do that direct, but right now it's expedient. So it's ok for anna
Would you be surprised if it was like federal agencies that were buying? Your ex would be
wise to hear anybody by june
how much your rx are being sold for now
if they were being sold at a higher percentage of, say I don't know like a market. How would that make you feel? Well, I would expect,
they would be sold at a market, and that's business.
Potentially like three four hundred percent mark up. There would be a nice profit for the seventy five percent of them.
Money that government agencies are spending on rex from this facility, isn't even go.
owing to the facility. It's good
owing to middle man, so this is the problem with rex, in a nutshell,
the trash incinerator is doing what it was going to do anyway, the money
made from the rex isn't going.
it's more renewable energy and government agents.
These are buying the rex to claim their green, but did greenhouse
Gas emissions go down at all because someone bought these rex did
I think tangibly change. Is this going to help us avoid climate catastrophe? Sorry AL gore, not at all! So why are federal agencies still purchasing these kinds of wrecks? You will expect your federal agency to rebuy boutique brags, paying a fortune former there'll be some report in a newspaper. Maybe yours, that's next on reveal the business of her own membership manager here at rivian, reveal as a nonprofit news organization lie to pen
His support of our listeners donate today, please head to reveal news dot. Org, slash, donate, thank you from the center for investigative reporting and p r x. This is reveal I'm al letter in two thousand and nineteen residents in two rural counties in georgia.
started to notice something nasty in the air,
wake up in the middle of the night, and I think my house is on fire because I can smell it inside my home
I chemical taste in my mouth, I feel this oriented and now I'm being poisoned
to biomass plants run by georgia? Renewable power were burning wood waste, including would that have been treated with a toxic preservative, called creosote stated
It shows found violations of air pollution limits. They find the company for leaking black wastewater into a nearby creek, threatening thousands of fish. The company said the plants or in emitting anything harmful, but county officials declared
public health, emergency and residents. Protest in well. Community members were speaking out about the pollution. These two plants would produce,
renewable energy certificates Rex and the federal government bought them. Hundreds of thousands
the them to pad it's environmental stats reveals, will evans went to ask the people buying and selling these things across the country what they think Rex actually accomplish. He starts in a georgia court. Oh the wrecks from the georgia biomass plants are at the center of a lawsuit between two companies.
The one producing them and the ones selling them the fight is over the profits. These rags don't belong to the plaintiffs, they created them and we owe them their hours. This is a lawyer. First,
rolling planet. The companies selling the rex he's speaking at a hearing earlier this year. What's interesting is the way he talks about what the company is selling and how little value it has. The right we are
discussing today are bio mass and are the least favoured of
all of the rex that you can buy,
and are the lowest cost, and these racks from the georgia biomass plants are especially cheap. We purchase from now
rex that were too old to be sold
You couldn't sell them. I had no value since rex
used to offset dirty electricity they're supposed to.
Come from renewable energy that was made around the same time. If there, too old, even prominent wreck supporters, don't consider them a legitimate offset and though these biomass racks were passed, their pride,
sterling planet found a willing buyer. We were
I want to sell to the military, yet the military bought racks from these plants. The department of agriculture, energy and transportation also bought them, so did the indian health service and the national institutes of health, but why
It goes back to this guy thanks very much for the warm welcome. I appreciate you treat a neighbour from
access so kindly back in two thousand five president george w bush was about to sign and energy bill that, among other things, required the federal government to get
some of its electricity from renewable sources is bill will strengthen our economy and it will improve our
environment is going to make this country more secure by today's standards. The requirement is pretty thin. The government only needed to get three percent of its electricity from renewable sources in two thousand and thirteen. It was pushed up to seven and a half percent, but the requirement hasn't been updated since, despite mounting evidence about the earth
it didn't need to slash global emissions in a brand new report, hundreds of scientists spill out in excruciating detail how climate change is affecting nearly every aspect of our lives on this planet. They say it's not too late to change course, but we are running out of time and here's the thing
The government is only hitting its modest seven and a half percent renewable energy goals,
by buying millions of wrecks federal agencies do get.
some of their own renewable energy directly from things like solar rays on military bases and that's been increasing over the
years but the law allows those projects to be double counted because that energy was made on federal land. So if you took away those generous short cuts, the rex and the double counting
the most recent numbers showed. The government is only using about three percent renewable energy, that's less than half of their target, and the rex, through using to make up the difference, come from places like the georgia, biomass plants and the florida trash and sent
gray love. It is then so depressing leah stokes is a professor at the university of california, santa Barbara who studies clean energy and
I'm at policy. She says the way the federal government has been buying. Energy is a huge, missed opportunity. The federal government,
uses an enormous amount of energy people can kind of forget you know, maybe they think about walmart or amazon and their carbon footprint. But the federal government's carbon footprint is actually three times larger than those huge companies. The federal government is the single largest property.
nor in the united states, and when you own a lot of buildings, there is a tremendous potential to generate your own green power. You could actually put solar on the roofs
these federal buildings on the parking lot, you compare it with battery storage. So there is a much better way to go about doing this. You don't have to be buying garbage
literal garbage into her? He should projects to meet hypothetically clean air quotes targets right,
from an is supposed to be moving away from garbage rex, like literal garbage rex, at least that's the Biden administrations official line united states sets out on the road to cut greenhouse gases in half in half by the end of this decade. That's where we're here,
ass, a nation! Last year, president Joe Biden sign into law a big climate bill with billions of dollars to stimulate the green energy market and when it comes to the government's own carbon footprint,
Biden issued an executive order that requires federal agencies to get one hundred percent clean electricity by twenty thirty, not three percent, not seven and a half per cent one hundred percent- and it's supposed to be carbon pollution free so theoretically
energy from burning things, those incinerator and biomass racks wooden count and
there's a bunch more rules that could make those efforts more effective, but also harder than just buying cheap rex.
You know the president has said that we have to have a hundred percent clean power by twenty thirty of all the federal agencies. So there is the law of the land trying to push these agencies in the right direction
it's where everyday civil servants really can become heroes because they can say, hey, there's an executive order. We need to meet it and they can make better decisions rather than you know, just going for the lowest common denominator.
fighting doesn't get reelected. The next president could kill his executive order, and so far implementation has been slow going. The departments of agriculture, commerce and energy were buying incinerator rex, nine months after the executive order. So are the? U s air force and nasa even the national, instead
its of health bought rex. From that florida trash incinerator in order to label one of its laboratories, a net zero energy campus I reached out to federal agencies the bottle lottery.
None of them would agree to it. On the record interview, some spokespeople set written statements
saying their agencies were supporting renewable energy? By buying these Rex other said they were just following the requirements or that they just bought whatever was cheapest. Some didn't responded all I ask the environmental protection agency to explain why it's promoted rex, for roughly two decades, they sent me a vague statements. Defending
as a crucial way to prove quote rightful claim of using renewable energy, but they did say electricity generated from a trash incinerator is not considered green power.
Andrew may, on the chief federal sustainability officer for the Biden, administration all
wooden agree to our accorded interview, but I did speak to him briefly any seem to acknowledge that the way the government has been doing, things has been less than affair,
The mayock said. The Biden administration has made some pivots and tightened things up, so that quote, the federal government gets to a place of legitimately running on clean energy, not solely from an accounting perspective. Then I went to the other side of the transaction, some one who makes it his business to sell rex as a promoter of rats by james, my belief since the beginning that rocks,
have a guy at any time you by Iraq, you're providing extra value. The market alden hathaway has been a supporter of rack since the very beginning he used to work for sterling planet. The company that sold the racks from the georgia biomass plants, the ones that were burning toxic, would he still consults with
alden hasn't met erech. He didn't like. We need more alternative
claim renewable energy sources. Are they liked regretted the wreck of the first round of defence in their battle, so
I don't think, there's a right that shouldn't be sole as iraq. There is one exception I brought up trash incinerate, erects like the ones made it the site in florida, then achieve visited yell of those those unquestionable their crime. A rush all then says he wouldn't buy them because of the gases and chemicals incinerators can release, but in general, he's pro rack, even biomass ones. He knows there controversial, but he says it makes sense for the government to buy whatever is cheapest new and expect your federal agencies. We buy booty, brats pang of forging former there be some report in a newspaper,
yeah. Maybe York's one of these guys planning for work. You know so they're very particular about making sure they get the best price out of it. Does that mean that they're not doing the job
amid buying these racks are not doing as much for the environment.
Of all rights, do something for the environment positive to non racks. So
I won't be in the trap of saying that government buying these low grade greggs isn't doing anything for the environment. It is, and it's not just price rec purchases also come down to the politics of how much the government should be spending on climate change. It would be probably pie in the sky to expect the government to pay top dollar for solar x. Try to drive the solar market, not saying that, isn't an idea that someone in a blue state got
probably think about it. A lot more than those a red state, but anyone in government has to be aware, but what that means you know spending our taxpayers money for
high value racks. When lower class contracts are available to major
climate goals and have you don't even believe in the climate you're gonna be
there really come playing. So what about the whole point of wrecks in the first pillar
to create more renewable energy critic? Say that's not happening, so I propose that to alden and his answer is remarkable. Coming
such a wreck proponent, I never made a huge difference in that we were taught. We've always been talking the value, the wreck as something like the icing on the cake icing on the cake for energy producers. I'll. Take that a little extra money. It will make a change in my my overall thing, but I'm glad to get a little extra money cause every little bit helps at the top of the shell. We spoke to odin schindler, the sustainability director for aspen skiing. Remember he started having second thoughts about wrecks more than fifteen years ago, and he still believes today that,
whether you are paying for cheap wind, rex or dirt, cheap biomass ones. The wreck still come out the same useless if it's easy and affordable and farm problem,
not driving any change of its brood
difficult, uncomfortable and keeps you up at nine gives you an ulcer, probably meaningful.
Ever since his initial buyers, remorse after odd in thought? The rex, on behalf of his company, gained a ton of positive attention and then asked the top brass to walk it. All back he's been on a campaign towards real, tangible change and
sponsor the climate crisis. We realise that it was all are utility, are utility was mostly coal based and that the waiter
de carbonized was not to buy racks but to actually change the word of that utility
there has been leading a sort of hostile, green takeover of the region's electric grid. He's found people to run against incumbent board members and change the utility from the inside
and we spend fifteen years doing not, and it was highly controversial and very difficult and took a lot of time and effort.
And you see why people by racks, but
It's so easy, so he's not surprised that the government is still opting for cheap rex to meet its goals, but here
happy about either. This is sort of the theme song to the end of the world when were putting a lot of time and
resources into something that we all know doesn't work and that's a theme song.
And that no one wants to hear for now. President Biden's executive order, the target to make the whole federal government run on clean energy remains just that a target which could be undone by the next president
There is a bill in congress that would make the government to one hundred percent renewable energy by twenty fifty
Many years later, environs order, the author, congresswoman
Julia brownlee of California says the country needs a more ambitious,
just law on the books, one that can't be overturned by future present her bill says the government should use renewable energy produced on site as much as possible, but it also let
the government fall back on its favourite shortcut buying more cheap rex
I led producer, for this week. Show is an achievable jenny causes edited. The show withheld from Catherine was scowl and kate howard,
special thanks to Mohamed Al Lu, Andy, Donahue and melissa lewis support for today's reporting comes from the emerson. Collective nikki frick is our fact checker. She had helped this week from Kim Frida victoria baronets are
No council production manages other wondered, twins, zoo, lemme, Cobb. Emma
oh brother, from another mother, stephen rescoring score and sound,
and by the dynamic do o j breezy. Mr Jim Briggs, fernando my man, yo router they'd, help this week from clear. See no moment are seal was Robert Rosen.
Or c o is maria feldman are interim executive producers of brett, myers and tacky. Tell Anita is our theme. Music is by colorado, lightning support for reveals, provided by the river and David Logan foundation, the ford foundation, the john D and catherine t macarthur foundation, the Jonathan Logan family foundation, the robert wood johnson foundation, the park foundation and the hellman foundation reveal is a co production of the center for investigative reporting and p r x, m l, edson and remember. There is always more to the story. The rx.
Transcript generated on 2023-07-28.