In a speech last week, President Obama announced a new outline of his administration's energy policy, a document called a "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future." What's new about this latest foray into energy policy isn't the policy itself—which he said is essentially what he's been pursuing since he took office—but the packaging. Whereas he started out with a clear focus on climate change, the emphasis has shifted to decreasing dependence on imported oil and stabilizing gas prices.

In his speech, Obama announced a new goal: reducing oil imports by one-third. But there isn't much new in terms of policies to achieve that goal. There are no direct means of ensuring that this ambitious goal is met, such as a cap on oil imports or a tax on gasoline. What's in the blueprint is largely what's been a part of the policy all along: fuel economy standards, various government supports for biofuels, and support for alternative vehicles such as electric vehicles.

The other big goal in the blueprint is the clean energy standard that Obama announced in his state of the Union address. This also isn't new: it is essentially a substitute for the cap and trade policy to limit greenhouse gas emissions that Obama used to support, but that failed to become law. With a clean energy standard, the mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is requiring utilities to choose from a list of approved technologies for generating electricity.

The clean energy standard is now also a part of the primary focus of reducing oil consumption. It is presented as a way to enable electric vehicles by making electricity generation cleaner.

Will these policies work to reduce oil imports, stabilize gas prices (presumably at affordable levels), and reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Will they even become law or official regulation? I'm working on a longer article to try to make an educated guess. My inclination is to be skeptical. The 1970s oil shocks led to regulations that required the fuel economy of new cars to double by 1985. In 1982, the U.S. imported 3.5 million barrels a day (.xls file). Now it imports more than twice that much: about nine million. The policy may have slowed growth in imports, but it certainly wasn't enough to decrease them.

Will increasing fuel economy standards, and other policies that have been tried before, such as supporting biofuels, work now? I'm curious what TR readers think.

The EPA has come out with its fuel economy ratings for the Nissan Leaf electric sedan, which goes on sale in December in 5 states. EPA labeled the car the best in its class in terms of fuel economy, using the EPAs formula that says that 33.7 kilowatt hours is equivalent to a gallon of gasoline, according to Nissan. By this measure, the car gets the equivalent of 99 miles per gallon (although it doesn't use any gasoline, just power from the grid).

But while the car is designed for a 100-mile range, it actually only gets 73 miles under drive tests meant to simulate real-world driving. Nissan has said before that mileage would vary, but gave the impression that 100 miles was the normal case, and the one sanctioned by the EPA (its website says the EPA LA4 cycle puts the range at 100).

According to Nissan, under some driving conditions, such as sitting in traffic with the heat blasting, the car will only go 62 miles on a charge. Traffic jams that keep you on the road longer than 4 hours will leave you stranded. Nissan gives a range of scenarios for driving range, but none of them include driving at normal highway speeds of 65 to 70 miles per hour, which in combination with the stereo blaring and the heater cranked might lower the range below 62 miles.

File under: caveat emptor.

A ballot proposition in California that would have suspended that state's recent climate change legislation has failed, clearing the way for greenhouse gas emissions regulations there to take effect, including a cap and trade program.

The outcome of the election could have implications for greenhouse regulations, and renewable energy, around the country. In many cases, California's environmental regulations have served as models for other states, as well as the federal government--for example, current clean air and national fuel economy regulations can be traced back to environmental regulations in California. The vote is a victory for supporters of clean tech (including some major clean tech investors) who wanted to keep the greenhouse regulations, and a defeat for the oil producers and refiners who wanted to stop the greenhouse gas regulations.

Proposition 23 would have stopped the implementation of Assembly Bill 32, a climate bill passed in 2006 that required greenhouse gas emissions in the state to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020. The rules designed to achieve this goal are scheduled to take effect at the beginning of 2012. All told, there are 69 measures geared to meet the greenhouse gas goals, but the most important are a cap and trade program, fuel economy regulations, a renewable electricity standard, energy efficiency requirements and a low-carbon fuel standard (some of these measures are also supported by separate laws).

Earlier this year, Prop 23 seemed sure to pass. Its supporters billed it as a way to save jobs, an appealing message with California's unemployment well over 12 percent. At the same time, climate legislation was faltering in the U.S. Senate. The tide seemed to have turned against greenhouse gas regulations as Americans focused on unemployment. But clean tech investors and other opponents of Proposition 23 outspent its supporters by about 3 to 1, and the proposition failed.

Under the cap and trade program, major greenhouse gas emitters such as power plants are allowed to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gas--the cap. To get under this cap, the power plant can either install new technology to reduce emissions, or in some other way reduce its emissions, or it can buy "allowances" from other greenhouse gas emitters that emit less than the cap. Cap and trade is one of the most flexible approaches to regulation, allowing power plants to choose whatever approach is cheapest. As a result, it's typically a cheaper way to reduce emissions than regulations that specify what technology must be used, which is the case with many other environmental regulations.

The low carbon fuel standard requires those who provide fuel to limit the amount of carbon dioxide the fuels emit when they're burned. The main way to do this is to blend petroleum-based fuels with low-carbon biofuels, such as ethanol made from cellulosic sources such as grass, as well as sugarcane, or in some cases corn. It's an alternative that could be more effective than the federal biofuels mandate, says Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis. The biofuels mandate requires fuel suppliers to use a certain amount of renewable fuels, but includes provisions that allow suppliers to avoid doing this if not enough biofuel is produced.

The renewable electricity standard requires utilities in California to get 33 percent of their electricity from certain renewable resources, such as wind, solar power, and geothermal. The impact of this measure will be limited, however, by how fast new renewable power sources can be introduced. Financing and power transmission issues have so far kept utilities from achieving a lower 20 percent target that existed apart from A.B. 32. "We can't catch 20 or 33 percent," says Tom Kelly, the chief deputy director of the California Energy Commission. "Demand is growing faster than renewables can be built."