The U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Bill (ACES) last Friday, in a historic vote to advance climate legislation.

The bill, passed by a narrow margin of 219 to 212, would introduce a cap-and-trade scheme and impose renewable energy and energy efficiency targets on power utilities. It would slash emissions of greenhouse gases by 17 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels. It also aims to spur creation of green jobs for the clean energy industry, including wind, solar, geothermal power, safe nuclear energy and cleaner coal.

The ACES bill will now go o the U.S. Senate for consideration.  The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed an American Clean Energy Leadership Act on June 17.  This bill addresses several energy issues, including many addressed under the ACES Act.  The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has initial plans to act on a cap-and-trade measure in early August.  These measures, as well as measures passed by some other Senate committees, will likely be combined to create the Senate counterpart to the ACES Act.  If the Senate passes this combined bill, differences between the Senate and House bills would have to be reconciled, with the final bill passed by both houses. After a successful reconciliation the bill could be sent to President Obama and signed into law.

The House vote came a day after a new Washington Post-ABC News survey found that Americans give wide support to regulation of atmospheric release of greenhouse gases from power plants, cars and factories. The poll puts the figure of support of regulation at three-fourths of those surveyed, with 52 percent supporting cap and trade.

However there are already several industry associations opposing the bill, including the American Petroleum Institute (API), which said the bill was being rushed without full consideration of other approaches and would result in US job losses and higher prices for US consumers.

API members include BHP Billiton, ExxonMobil, Schlumberger Ltd, Shell, BP America and ConocoPhillips – even though the latter three also lobbied for the introduction of an emissions trading scheme as members of the US Climate Action Partnership before. Another industry opposing the bill is the National Mining Association. They are worried about the nation’s economic and energy security through timelines and policies that supposedly move far ahead of the technology to meet emissions reduction mandates and needlessly displace coal and other sources of fossil fuels.

Others, like the Aluminium Association President Steve Larkin took a more diplomatic approach, approving the bill but pointing at the need to better protect energy-intensive industries. They bank on the senate bill to at least watering down the initial bill to a broader compromise – if not bring it down by not finding the necessary votes or a compromise that can be put into law.