In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama requested that Congress pass legislation mandating a national clean energy standard (CES). A CES targets the CO2 emissions from the electric power industry by setting minimum percentages of total power (electricity) generation that must come from sources that emit no CO2. (It should be noted that CO2 is colorless, odorless, and non-toxic. Therefore, it is a misnomer to call CO2 dirty.) Though this sounds less threatening than cap-and-trade legislation, it can end up being pretty much the same thing.