Alot of heat — and not so much light — has been made about the U.S. House vote earlier this summer to pass the American Clean Energy and SecurityAct, which will start to move this country to a clean energy economy. A bipartisan majority of New Jersey's Congressional delegation showed strong leadership by supporting legislation which will start getting the rest of the country caught up with New Jersey.

From generating the second most power from solar in the country to likely having the first offshore wind farm in the country, New Jersey has been setting the path to move away from fossil fuels and generate green jobs. According to a survey by the Pew Charitable Trusts, there were over 2,000 green businesses in New Jersey's emerging clean energy economy by 2007, employing over 25,000 people.

But the final bill that comes out of the U.S. Senate can and must do better if we are to unleash the potential of clean energy to transform our economy, put millions of Americans back to work, and solve global warming.

Even with this momentum in Congress, there are still large obstacles, including over 2,000 fossil fuel lobbyists gearing up to defeat this legislation and a backlash against the transition to clean energy solutions.

The current criticisms of the legislation's cap-and-trade emissions program seem to miss three important points: we've done it before, we're doing it now, and the cost of doing nothing far exceeds the cost of the program.

Twenty years ago, when Congress was debating strengthening the Clean Air Act to reduce acid rain, utilities charged that cleaning up their act would put them out of business or lead to huge rate hikes. The untested system of creating a market for pollution credits to be bought and sold to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions was deemed too risky.

The legislation passed Congress by strong margins, and reduced emissions by half. And it did so at one-sixth of the projected costs. The experience should be informative: the strength of market forces to provide disincentives for older and dirtier technology.

Since 2005, New Jersey also has led the way regionally to reduce global warming emissions. A collection of 10 Northeast states, including New Jersey, formed a regional compact called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to put a price on carbon and create incentives to reduce globalwarming pollution.

The plan is up and running, and the sky hasn't fallen. In fact, the fourth auction of carbon permits occurred recently, and it raised over $14 million for programs in New Jersey to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save consumers money. Over the next decade, the agreement will reduce power plant emissions by 10 percent and significantly reduce business and household energy demand.

And, of course, there is the issue of cost. Missing from the debate has been the cost of the status quo — which is immense. Using data from the Department of Energy, Environment New Jersey recently calculated that between 2010 and 2030, New Jersey will spend as much as $888 billion on oil, coal, and other fossil fuels — over 3.3 times the total earnings of all New Jersey workers in 2007. On a per-capita annual level, the cost will increase 60 percent for the average person to over $5,000.

The cost of cap-and-trade will certainly

be higher in states, unlike

New Jersey, that are solely dependent on fossil fuels. However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the cost of the program over the next decade will total a little more than a postage stamp a day for average American households. And that's without the benefits of energy efficiency programs, which would likely lower consumer costs to a negligible level.

And the impacts of global warming might seem abstract, but scientists continue to warn how even a small sea-level rise will have huge impacts. Attacking science may be a viable political strategy, but the insurance industry, hardly an activist bunch, takes it seriously because of the immense value of shore real estate. A 2008 University of Maryland study put the potential price tag on threatened property at over $106 billion.

When John F. Kennedy in 1961 issued his famous declaration that America would get to the moon within the decade, NASA's engineers, despite the technological challenges, buckled down. For Congress, this 21st-century moon-shot is even more urgent. Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez have been steadfast clean energy supporters, but we will need their leadership to strengthen and pass clean energy legislation to kick-start the new green economy.

Doug O'Malley is the field director of

Environment New Jersey, Trenton.