On Energy and Climate: Lead or Get Out of the Way
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Environment Editor

Thursday 20 December 2007

Last weekend at the UN climate change conference in Bali, after the US had blocked almost every way forward, the delegate from Papua New Guinea finally had enough. He addressed the US representative, saying, "If for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please - get out of the way."

When the assembly erupted into thunderous applause, the US negotiator, Paula Dobriansky, must have finally realized how isolated the US had become. Faint and flustered, she caved, and agreed to at least allow the global negotiations to move on to the next stage.

Back home, "lead or get out of the way" is a message the lame-duck Bush administration and some of its legislative dinosaurs are likely to be hearing more frequently as the clock ticks forward to 2009.

An editorial in The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday, titled "Move aside: 2009 can't come soon enough for environment," said:

"We expect Mr. Bush will blithely pass on to the next president a nation moving pell-mell toward drought, rising seas and unpredictably severe weather patterns. We urge the new president, whoever that may be, to put America in the lead on emission reduction to help head off that scenario. The most productive thing this president is likely to do is to get out of the way."

Unfortunately, the president shows no signs of complying with that wish. The latest Bush blockage came on Wednesday, when, just hours after signing the new energy bill into law, Bush's EPA administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, announced that he would deny California's application to enforce its own, more stringent auto emissions standards for carbon dioxide.

A landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court last spring paved the way for California to enforce its own standards when the court made it clear that CO2 is defined as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. California has long had the right to promulgate its own air quality regulations under the Clean Air Act, and all it needs to move forward with those standards is a formal waiver from the EPA, a waiver that has now been denied.

At a press conference call conducted at 6:30 Wednesday evening, Johnson said he was blocking California because the new CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) auto mileage standard just passed in the energy bill would be a better solution. He said: "The Bush administration is moving forward with a clear national solution - not a confusing patchwork of state rules."

First of all, the 35 mpg CAFE standard passed in the energy bill is pathetically inadequate in the face of the huge threat of climate change, and by comparison to what other governments in Europe and Asia are already requiring of automakers selling in their markets. California's proposed CO2 emissions rules for cars will translate into a 43 mpg standard. And it will be implemented much sooner - by 2016, rather than 2020 for the new CAFE standard.

Secondly, California's carbon emissions standard for cars would be a uniform standard that other states could adopt voluntarily, not a "confusing patchwork." It would be the same standard for all the states. With about 18 states committed to adopting California's rules, half the US auto market would be under the stricter standard.

On the other hand, "a confusing patchwork" is an accurate description of the current set of state Renewable Electricity Standards. Dr. Marilyn Brown, professor of energy policy at Georgia Tech, has said, "If our interstate highway system was structured like our renewable energy market, drivers would be forced to change their engines, maybe their tires, and probably their fuels, every time they cross state boundaries."

That's why it was so important to pass the national RES that was included in the original, strong energy bill passed by the House on December 13. Republicans in the Senate blocked the Renewable Electricity Standard that required utilities to generate 15 percent of power from renewable sources such as wind and solar, along with the tax package, which would have funded a variety of tax incentives for renewable energy by rolling back big tax breaks recently awarded to the oil industry.

The Senate actually passed the strong version of the energy bill by 59 votes. But they did not have the 60 votes needed to overcome the Republican filibuster and the energy bill went from strong coffee to weak tea.

That crucial one vote could have come from the one Republican who has a reputation for combating climate change, but Senator McCain was absent and did not vote. It looks like John McCain got out of the way in order to avoid leading. The country and the world are all waiting for things to improve in 2009, but it would be a mistake to hold out much hope for leadership from presidential candidate McCain.

If McCain had helped the Senate pass that strong brew of a bill, it would have sent a powerful message to the oil and utility industries that have this country by the balls - like dumping a boiling takeout cup of java in their laps.

With California ready to defend its 43 mpg standard in court, who needs that weak tea of a 35 mpg CAFE standard? Aside from new energy efficiency standards for appliances and light bulbs, there isn't a lot left in the energy bill that passed that is worth much anyway. The ethanol mandate is a harmful boondoggle benefiting Monsanto and Archer Daniels Midland - another axis of the corporate oligarchy that really runs this country.

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The Widening Chasm on Energy
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Environment Editor

Tuesday 11 December 2007

Last Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed, by a 235-181 vote, the Energy Independence and Security Act. This new energy bill includes measures that would increase car fuel mileage, restore taxes on Big Oil to pay for investments in solar, wind and energy efficiency, and mandate that electric utilities generate 15 percent of their power using renewable energy.

On Friday, the same bill passed the Senate by 53 votes in favor to 42 opposed. Republicans then threatened to filibuster, raising the bar for passage to 60 votes. The Senate will work on revisions and is expected to bring a modified bill to the floor sometime this week, but giant corporations are working overtime to trash as much of the renewable energy substance as they can.

The renewable electricity mandate and the oil tax package are the two provisions attracting the most opposition, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling them "twin millstones ... around its neck."

According to a Bloomberg report, Rudy Giuliani's lobbying firm has taken a leading role in trying to "strangle" the bill on behalf of the utility and oil industries.

Despite the blockage in the Senate, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was widely praised for passing the renewable energy and efficiency provisions, and Democrats are touting the achievement as an illustration of what they would accomplish on climate change and energy independence if given control of government in 2008.

Following the Senate vote, Senator John Kerry flew to Bali to discuss climate policy with world leaders and to let them know he is convinced that "the politics of 2009 in the United States are going to be just night and day, different from where we have been before." Commenting on the Senate vote, Kerry said, "The energy vote today - and the message the Roadblock Republicans risk sending far and wide across the globe - is a gigantic reminder why we're still one election away from bringing the biggest and boldest change to Washington."

Proponents of the House-passed energy bill have called it a "down payment" on a climate change strategy. With the "down payment" now in jeopardy, climate activists organized by the US Climate Emergency Council (USCEC) planned to conduct a sit-in today inside the office of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The activists will demand that McConnell meet with them to discuss retaining strong support for renewable energy in the revised Senate energy bill.

A recent analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) confirms that the House bill would reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The study found that the legislation would prevent over 190 million metric tons of global warming pollution in 2020 - equivalent to taking 28 million of today's average cars and trucks off the road in that year.

The UCS study also shows the bill to be effective at reducing America's dependence on foreign oil, finding that full implementation of the measures will save about 1.1 million barrels of oil per day in 2020 - half of what the United States currently imports from the Persian Gulf. Even after paying for the necessary fuel economy technology, the study finds, in 2020 American consumers will save $22 billion in energy costs.

And then there are the jobs. While no one is predicting the exact number of jobs this energy bill would create, Democrats are saying that major investments in renewable energy could create three million green jobs over 10 years. With its renewable electricity mandate and expanded production tax credits for wind and solar energy, the House-passed energy bill would almost certainly spark such major investment. The package also creates a program to train a quality workforce for "green" collar jobs such as solar panel manufacturing and installation.

On the other side of the energy divide, a report released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) in November says that energy bill provisions would destroy five million jobs by 2030.

Pete Morton, a senior resource economist for the Wilderness Society, called it "a biased study that only looks at the costs but not the benefits of the proposed legislation."

The API study claims that closing tax loopholes for Big Oil will cause an increase in energy prices that will slow economic growth, leading to the job losses. But the bipartisan Congressional Joint Economic Committee found that closing the $13.5 billion in tax loopholes would have no effect on oil production decisions and, consequently, no effect on consumer prices for gasoline and natural gas.

Big Oil and its friends claim that restoring the oil industry's tax burden will leave the industry short of funds needed to develop new oil and gas resources. But Daniel J. Weiss of American Progress says, "This ignores the over half a trillion dollars in combined profits earned by the big five oil companies since 2001... The $13.5 billion in tax breaks, collected over a decade, is less than three percent of these companies' total profits over the last seven years. BP, Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil each had more than $13.5 billion in profits during the first three quarters of 2007. The closed loopholes are a drop in the barrel compared with big oil profits."

Weiss also points out that for the most part, Big Oil is using its profits not to invest in clean, renewable energy or even to explore for new oil and gas. Instead, these companies are using a large portion of their profits to buy back their own stock. "This does nothing to add to the US supply of either new, clean energy, or oil and gas," Weiss said.

With global supplies of conventional oil at or near their peak, the failure of oil companies to invest in renewable alternatives has to be one of the greatest market failures of all time. But this is something that Big Oil supporters refuse to see. Republican Rep. Joe Barton of Texas said, "We are moving from a market-based energy policy, which has served this country well for 150 years, to a government-mandated energy policy."

What Barton cannot see, along with the American Enterprise Institute, the Club for Growth and other blindly pro-growth capitalists, is that endless growth on a finite planet is plain impossible. Markets can still work, but all markets have rules, and the rules have to recognize the reality that oil and gas are starting to run out and we cannot rely on coal and dirty fuels such as tar sands and oil shale because they will kill us with global warming and toxic pollution.

Another reality that the Joe Bartons of the world will shortly recognize is that renewable energy will not only be mandated by government but demanded by the people. A recent Zogby Poll found that 77 percent of Republicans, 85 percent of independents and 92 percent of Democrats agree that utilities should be required to produce some of their energy from clean sources such as wind and solar.

The giant utility, Southern Company, which has spent $7.26 million this year on lobbying by Guliani's firm and others, has not convinced many people even in its own backyard. An editorial in The Tampa Tribune on the renewable electricity standard said: "That standard for renewables would be difficult in states like Florida now heavily dependent on fossil fuels. Yet Republican Gov. Charlie Crist wants the state to be 20 percent renewable by 2020, and if Florida can achieve that, the 15 percent standard is reasonable elsewhere."

While climate protesters occupy McConnell's office, others will be making calls to their senators. Ted Glick, coordinator of the Climate Emergency Council, urged citizens to flood Senate offices with phone calls to "demand that the Senate include both the 15 percent by 2020 Renewable Electricity Standard for utility companies and a Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit in the energy bill."

Activists from the Youth Climate Movement identified a list of key senators who could be persuaded to keep strong support for renewables in the bill: Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota), Susan M. Collins (R-Maine), Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), John Ensign (R-Nevada), Judd Greg (R-New Hampshire), Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), Carl Levin (D-Michigan), Richard G. Lugar (R-Indiana), Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri), John McCain (R-Arizona), Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), Gordon Smith (R-Oregon), Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania), Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), John E. Sununu (R-New Hampshire), and John Thune (R-South Dakota).

Marianne Lavelle, a columnist at US News and World Report, had a different idea and a different target list. She suggested in her December 10 column: "If the goal was scaled back from 15 percent to 10 percent ... would that make a difference? It still would be a huge gain, especially over 13 years, when wind, solar, and geothermal now total less than 3 percent of generation. And since utilities could meet a portion of their 'renewable' percentage with badly needed energy efficiency improvements, would that really be an unachievable goal - even for the coal-dependent South (which has argued that it lacks resources for wind power)?"

Lavelle named six target senators who voted in favor of a renewable electricity amendment to the 2005 energy bill: "Democrats Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Evan Bayh of Indiana, and Republicans Charles Grassley of Iowa, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and John Ensign of Nevada (Ensign was recorded as not voting on the energy bill last week)."

Another senator who failed to show up for last week's vote was presidential candidate and erstwhile climate change fixer John McCain. Hillary Clinton was not present for the vote, but she gave her proxy to Barbara Boxer.

Al Gore said on Monday that he believes the presidential candidates are spending too little time discussing climate change and the environment. It would certainly help voters to know where more of them stand on the growing energy divide.

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Greens Take Heart at Final Energy Bill
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Report

Thursday 06 December 2007

When the Democrats took the helm of Congress last January, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to make energy independence a top priority. Democrats will "energize America," she said, and get the country off of imported oil.

Last summer, both houses of Congress passed energy bills oriented toward increasing energy efficiency and boosting renewable power and biofuels. But there were major differences between the House and Senate versions: The House version had no Corporate Average Fuel Economy program (CAFE) car mileage mandate due to Michigan Rep. John Dingell, (an auto industry champion), and the Senate version had no Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) due to strong opposition from Senate Republicans. Green-leaning energy advocates and environmentalists wanted both mandates in a final bill.

The Democratic leadership had a job in front of them to reconcile these two versions and get a final bill to the floor, especially since Senate Republicans refused to appoint a conference committee. But it appears they have finally done it. And not only that, it is a bill many greens think is worth supporting.

Just a few weeks ago, the chances of Democrats bringing a strong bill to a vote looked slim. Before Thanksgiving, Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that to smooth the way toward passing a bill by Christmas, they would drop the RES. Advocates for renewable energy reacted strongly, calling the move a "lump of coal" in their Christmas stocking.

The final bill will now include a 35 mpg CAFE standard, an RES of 15 percent, and 21 billion dollars of investment in the renewable energy economy.

Among other things, the 21 billion dollars will fund production tax credits for solar and wind power over a four-year period; it will fund research and development programs for renewable energy and job training programs for solar power installers; and it will fund individual tax credits for solar energy, home weatherization and purchase of fuel efficient vehicles like plug-in hybrid cars.

Some greens were positively bubbly about the turn of events. Dave Roberts, a writer at the green online magazine Grist said, "Thanks to the persistence of Nancy Pelosi (and others), the energy bill has been almost entirely restored to its original strength ... A tip of the hat to you, Madame Speaker. You are restoring my faith."

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have literally declared war on the bill. Sen. Pete Domenici said, "If it comes over here, we have no alternative but to have war." In other words, a filibuster. And President Bush has warned he is likely to veto the bill if it does pass the Senate.

Senate Republicans have drawn the line on two provisions: the Renewable Electricity Standard and the $21 billion tax package that will fund the bill, especially the $13.5 billion in higher taxes on oil companies. Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, of Texas, was the one who put a hold on the bill back in October, preventing the appointment of a conference committee. She called the tax increase "discrimination against one industry." Hutchison received $2,029,825 in contributions from the oil and gas industries in 2006.

Tyson Slocum, of Public Citizen, thinks taxing the oil industry is a sensible way to fund renewable energy. He points out most of the 13.8 billion dollars in oil industry tax breaks the energy bill would repeal were awarded very recently, in 2004 and 2005, at a time when the oil industry was making record profits.

The biggest tax break for the oil industry, about 10 billion dollars, came in 2004 when the World Trade Organization found Boeing had been receiving tax breaks for airplanes it manufactured for export. As a result, the US government rewrote its tax rules and created an economy-wide tax break for US manufacturers. The oil lobby made sure that, in that process, oil and gas exploration got defined as "manufacturing."

Slocom said, "We are not talking about a manufacturing tax break for processing oil in a refinery, just for finding and pulling a barrel of oil out of the earth."

Scott Sklar, a solar energy industry lobbyist, also favors the Democrats' tax strategy. He compared the current energy bill to the Energy Policy Act of 2005: "The 2005 Energy Policy Act cost 14 billion dollars and 8 billion of that went to subsidize oil, coal, gas and utilities. It was paid for by cutting low income health programs. Poor people paid for the oil subsidies."

Tyson Slocum was pleased the 50 billion dollars in loan guarantees for new nuclear plants passed in the Senate version last summer have now been dropped.

When asked how he would rate the final version of the energy bill, Slocom said he would give it a seven out of ten. One of the things keeping it from being a ten was "inadequate money for household support to move to greater energy efficiency." For instance, although the bill doubles the solar energy tax credit from $2000 to $4000, since the cost of a complete solar electric system is upwards of $20,000, only the affluent will be able to take advantage of it.

After cautioning that changes could still be made at the last minute that might reduce his support, Slocum said, "It is a fine first step to a renewable energy future. Not as big as it could be, but it is a step in the right direction."

So, what caused the turnaround from the dark days before the Thanksgiving recess, when it looked as though the Democrats would disappoint green expectations for the bill?

Scott Sklar credits an outpouring of grassroots pressure. But also, he said, "Nancy Pelosi, in her heart, loves this stuff. The Democrats decided to draw a line no matter what happens."

When contacted on Wednesday, Pelosi's office said the House vote would take place on Thursday. However, other sources predicted it would slip until Friday evening or even until next week. Harry Reid has promised the Senate will take it up as soon as it passes the House.

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Energy Bill to Sacrifice Renewables
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Environment Editor

Monday 12 November 2007

Last Thursday, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid said that they would jettison the renewable energy provisions in both the House and Senate versions of the 2007 energy bill in the interest of passing a bill before the Thanksgiving recess begins on November 17.

Republicans have been holding up action on the bill for months now, refusing to participate in conference committee meetings to reconcile the House and Senate versions. The big sticking points for Republicans have been support for renewable energy and ending billions of dollars in subsidies for oil companies. Democrats would like to use the oil subsidy money to support solar and wind power.

Representatives of the renewable energy industry were dismayed by the Democrats' abandonment. "This is basically Congress delivering an early Christmas present to the American public - and it's a lump of coal," said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). "We are feeling disgusted because this energy bill goes right back to maintaining the status quo."

The renewable energy provisions in the bill come in two forms: a Renewable Electricity Standard that requires utilities to supply 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind, and tax provisions, including a production tax credit for wind power and a tax credit to encourage investment in solar power equipment.

While the Renewable Electricity Standard would be a new federal program (31 states already have some kind of renewable mandate), the tax incentives for solar and wind would continue programs already in place. Losing these tax breaks would be devastating to the renewable energy industry, said solar lobbyist Scott Sklar of the Stella Group: "It will cause sales and investment to implode."

By giving up on renewable energy, lawmakers are losing an opportunity to increase energy security and strengthen the economy. Last week the American Solar Energy Society released a report on the economic benefits of investment in renewable energy, finding that major investments in renewables and energy efficiency retrofits could produce 40 million jobs and generate $4.5 trillion in US revenue by 2030.

The latest turn in the energy bill would actually force the country a few steps backward. Scott Sklar said that unlike in past years, there is little chance that the renewable tax incentives will be attached to another bill for passage this year.

If those tax incentives are lost, Americans will feel the pain quickly. Randall Swisher, head of the American Wind Energy Association said that the rapid growth of the American wind industry would go into a stall. "Getting into 2008, we will start to see uncertainty creep in in terms of getting projects financed and, even more importantly, attracting manufacturers to this country, bringing with them the jobs that are a critical part of what this industry can deliver for the future of this country," said Swisher.

The Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) was one of the provisions that passed only in the House version of the energy bill. Some Republicans, along with President Bush, have strongly opposed the mandate. Senator Domenici, ranking member of the Senate energy committee, cited complaints from utilities in the Southeast that they lacked renewable resources required to meet a 15 percent standard, but renewable energy experts say it won't be that challenging.

Domenici and some other Republicans want to keep the current state-by-state approach. They say it makes the most of regional differences in renewable resources. Scott Sklar warns that a strictly regional approach would shrink the potential of renewable energy.

"If the goal is to build a national, sustainable set of clean energy industries, the entire US market needs to be included," Sklar said. "Blending tax credits, an RES and national interconnection standards is the core government tool box to accelerate and enhance these technologies and build these industries. With energy imports increasing, prices increasing, climate change emissions increasing, our electric infrastructure aging, now is not the time to balkanize energy efficiency and production, but [to] set goals and nurture new technologies and new markets."

Republican maneuvers to kill the energy bill also came to light last week when Senator Domenici introduced a pair of amendments to the farm bill now being debated in the Senate. Domenici wants to migrate two of his favored energy provisions - the ethanol mandate and $50 billion in nuclear power loan guarantees - into the more viable farm bill. The loan guarantee title is called "loan guarantees for renewable fuel facilities," and never mentions nuclear power specifically. Dave Roberts, a writer at the green magazine Grist, called the move "sneaky."

With agribusiness lobbying hard for it, transferring the ethanol mandate to the farm bill would weaken bipartisan support for the energy bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters last week that the language should stay in the energy bill and that Democrats were going to "do an energy package separate from the farm bill."

With the Democratic leadership willing to sacrifice renewable energy provisions to pass an energy bill, what will be left? One controversial provision that may make it to the final bill is a watered-down version of the Senate's auto fuel efficiency standard. This provision has a lot going for it politically.

First, it has the support of President Bush and many Republicans. In an October 15 letter to Speaker Pelosi, Bush outlined a framework for an energy bill that would get his support. It would not include a Renewable Electricity Standard, but it would "reform and strengthen the fuel economy standard for cars."

In the letter, Bush then goes on to spell out the loopholes he wants inserted into a fuel economy standard. There must be separate standards for cars and light trucks (no holding SUVs to high standards) and there must be a cost-benefit analysis safety valve.

Fuel economy for cars is also polling very well. A bipartisan poll conducted last week found that voters connect better fuel efficiency with national security. Pollster Mark Mellman said: "The overwhelming support for CAFE standards cuts across all the traditional demographics in this country." Overall, 86 percent of voters said they support requiring automakers to increase fuel economy - 90 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents and 83 percent of Republicans. Only health care costs and the Iraq war show similar levels of concern at 79 percent and 72 percent respectively.

Passing a weak fuel economy standard may let both the parties say they have done something about energy security, but it won't do much to build a renewable energy economy for the future.

But some Democrats are still willing to fight for the renewable energy provisions. Colorado Congressman Mark Udall said that he will meet with Speaker Pelosi this Wednesday about the energy bill.

Judith Kohler, writing for The Associated Press, reports that Udall believes support for renewable energy is a more important priority for the energy bill than increasing the CAFE standard. He is also meeting with senators to share his experiences with Colorado's successful Renewable Electricity Standard and to reassure senators from Southern states that energy experts believe they will be able to meet a Renewable Electricity Standard.

Udall is co-chair of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Caucus in the House. Referring to his work on the House version of the energy bill that passed last August, he said, "Those of us who fought really hard in August are not going to rest until the final decision is made."

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Waiting for the Energy
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Environment Editor

Thursday 11 October 2007

Conventional wisdom among environmentalists today says it would be unwise to pass a major climate change bill too soon. As long as the Bush veto looms and Republicans retain the filibuster club in the Senate, any climate change bill that passes through that birth canal is likely to be a stunted, shriveled thing. Better to wait until a strong bill can be passed than to establish a weak policy now.

But energy is supposed to be different. President Bush has admitted that America is "addicted to oil," and he is a big booster of technology as the solution to global warming. At his major-economies meeting on climate change in September, Bush called for an international fund to help developing nations finance clean-energy projects to stem climate change. But when he refused to offer a funding commitment or any other mechanism to implement the plan, international delegates turned up their noses and said they would wait till 2009 to engage the US on climate.

You might expect that Bush would be more willing to put his money where his mouth is where the US is concerned, but that does not seem to be the case.

Both houses of Congress passed energy bills last summer. The Senate, in particular, made a big effort to produce a bipartisan consensus. Environmentalists are calling the new energy bill "a down payment on efforts to combat global warming." But President Bush has not come out in support of either the House or Senate version of the bill.

Meanwhile, getting both houses of Congress to sit down and reconcile two very different bills has been difficult. In early September, Democrats sent discouraging signals about any bill passing this session. Perhaps they heard from their constituents, because by the end of the month, Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, was promising to appoint conferees soon. It was to have been last week and has now been postponed until after the Senate gets back from its Columbus Day recess. On Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with other Democrats to discuss bringing an energy bill directly to the floor.

There is no question that public support for clean, renewable energy is at an all-time high. This is showing up at the state level, where 31 states have passed some sort of mandate to produce energy from solar, wind and other renewable sources. The National Governors Association is proceeding to coordinate programs as best it can in the vacuum of federal energy policy. At an NGA forum on renewable energy, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty (a Republican) said, "Energy is the defining issue of our time. The public is way ahead of the politicians ... there is enormous running room for policy makers to make significant advances ... there's an urgency to this issue, and none of us - Democrats, Republicans, politicians and the public - have acted as urgently as we need to."

With such strong public support, why have the Democrats found it so difficult to produce an energy bill?

Cars, Coal and Nukes

One problem has been Michigan Representative John Dingell, who chairs the House Energy Committee. Backing the position of Detroit automakers, Dingell refused to allow any increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) fuel mileage standards.

And while the House bill has no CAFE increase, the Senate bill lacks a Renewable Energy Standard (RES). The House passed a RES requiring utilities to generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources (mostly solar, wind and biomass) by 2020. The US is one of the few nations left that has not adopted such a standard, but Bill Wicker, on the staff of Senate Energy Committee Chair Jeff Bingaman, said the Republicans "blocked every effort" to include a national RES in the Senate energy bill.

Matt Letourneau, energy policy aide to Senator Pete Domenici, ranking member of the Senate energy committee, said a national RES would be unfair to some regions of the country that don't have abundant renewable resources, particularly the Southeast. He said the standard is too high and it is "not possible" to get 15 percent of the region's power from renewable energy.

But Scott Sklar, a solar energy lobbyist, said that there is plenty of renewable energy in the Southeast. "The Southeast is biomass rich and solar rich. Solar could provide 5-6 percent of the region's power, wind 1-2 percent and biomass 10-15 percent. The waste biomass from Hurricane Katrina alone could provide power for 30 years." Utilities can also substitute up to 4 percent of the target with increases in efficiency.

Lynn Hargis, a former attorney with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), who now works for Public Citizen monitoring energy regulation, said that the real problem is giant utility companies in the South, such as Duke, Entergy and Southern Company, which want to make huge profits selling cheap, coal-generated power in unregulated markets.

The Senate bill also includes loan guarantees of up to $50 billion for nuclear power. Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen calls that "an unprecedented financial obligation" and says that inclusion of those loan guarantees in a final bill would "overwhelm any benefits" from the other provisions.

Analysts say that loans to build nuclear plants are distinctively "sub-prime" with the risk of utilities defaulting running well over 50 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Taxpayer billions wasted on boondoggle nuke plants are taxpayer billions that can't be spent putting solar panels on roofs or developing better batteries for electric cars.

Scott Sklar is less concerned about the loan guarantees. He says that any energy bill able to get past a Republican filibuster and a Bush veto will include loan guarantees for nuclear power, so there's no point in fighting it. He predicts that the Democrats will pass an energy bill by January or they "won't survive" the pressure from constituents, and that the bill will include lighter versions of the RES and CAFE standards, along with renewed production tax credits for solar and wind power.

But if the RES and CAFE provisions are watered down even more than the current versions, what will that do to our climate policy down payment?

A new analysis released by Environmental Defense shows that if we do nothing, US greenhouse gas emissions will rise 35 percent by 2030. If all of the best provisions from both House and Senate versions pass and are vigorously implemented, emissions would climb only 4 percent above today's levels by 2030. But because many of the provisions allow flexibility, if they are not implemented aggressively, they will allow emissions to grow 22 percent by 2030.

Combine this flimsy "down payment" with the sub-prime nuke loans, and you don't end up with much value. We need to do a lot better than this if we are going to prevent the worst ravages of global warming and hang on to our planetary home.

Scott Sklar says it is possible that Democrats could produce a final energy bill that is stronger than both current versions, but they would have to "ram" it through.

Democratic leaders could bypass a formal conference committee and strike a bicameral deal to put an energy bill directly on the floor in both houses at once. Nancy Pelosi indicated on Wednesday that she would pursue that option. A strongly progressive energy bill might not survive a Bush veto, but at least it would energize the progressive constituency that is ready for a real energy revolution.

Struggle Behind the Scenes

Meanwhile, a series of skirmishes is taking place over coal among utilities, politicians, agencies and environmental groups.

Two weeks ago, Representative Henry Waxman sent a letter to the US Environmental Protection Agency, objecting to its permitting of a coal-fired power plant in Deseret, Utah. Waxman said the recent Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court decision requires EPA to address the coal plant's greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Sierra Club is following up with a lawsuit.

On September 14, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo subpoenaed five of the country's largest energy companies, demanding that they disclose the financial risks of their greenhouse gas emissions to shareholders.

Some environmental groups are targeting banks that invest in coal power-plant construction. Rainforest Action Network is planning protests at Citigroup and Bank of America branch offices around the country on November 16. "We're going upstream," a RAN spokesperson said. "Without bank financing, utilities can't actually build any of those plants."

Peter Montague of Environmental Research Foundation reports that since the beginning of 2006 at least two dozen new coal-fired plants have been canceled. Montague says, "A small but effective citizens' movement has managed to box in Big Coal."

Politicians are starting to declare themselves against coal. Presidential candidate Barack Obama released his energy and global warming plan this week, saying he would oppose all new coal-fired generation that did not include carbon capture and storage technology.

Just last week, Tampa Electric Co., a Florida utility, announced it was canceling plans to build a coal plant with carbon capture and storage because of uncertainties around the technical feasibility. Florida is one state that has been very clear that it won't allow any new coal-fired generation without carbon capture and storage. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimates that it will take ten years of testing for the technology to mature, if we start today. But today there is not even one demonstration plant anywhere in the world that incorporates the complete cycle of carbon capture and storage.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid also opposes new coal plants and has introduced a far-reaching bill (S. 2076 - the Clean Renewable Energy and Economic Development Act) that limits the federal financing of power transmission lines to those that carry at least 75 percent renewable energy. It applies the same standard to new power lines crossing federal land. This would keep Big Coal out of some of the new energy corridors that may be established under the Energy Policy Act (EPACT) of 2005.

But King Coal is hardly down for the count.

In early September, FERC designated a set of new national power corridors in the Northeast under the EPACT. State regulators and environmentalists are suspicious about the locations of the corridors, which seem designed to funnel cheap coal power from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast - where states have already committed to reducing greenhouse gasses, but power demand is high. Under the EPACT, federal regulators can override state concerns. Environmental Defense is considering a lawsuit.

Power to the People

Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, said in a recent opinion piece for the San Francisco Chronicle that the old energy paradigm - where large centralized generators convert fossil fuels to electricity which is sent over transmission lines to homes and businesses - is over. Solar, he says, is a "disruptive technology" that is changing everything. He says the California Solar Initiative passed last year is on track to power one million homes by 2017.

And in California, it is not just homes getting powered; it is also people who are getting empowered.

Van Jones, an environmental and social activist and cofounder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, California, was interviewed on the radio program Living on Earth last week about the impact of solar jobs on the American workforce:

"There's a wonderful program, which I just can't stop bragging on, called 'Solar Richmond,' where they got a modest amount of money, got 20 guys - you know low-income African-American, Latino, Filipino, one African-American woman. For nine weeks these guys got up, this young woman got up, every morning. They had to be there at nine o'clock. They had to learn these skills. Nine weeks later they did their first installation. There were local TV cameras there, solar employers were there saying, 'hey, we need workers.' And you know, the look on these young people's faces. Often these are the young men who are always seen as the villains and yet here they are, nine weeks later, African-American, Latino, with the baggy pants, the hair or whatever, but they've got their work boots on, they've got their orange jerseys on, and they're doing this work. And they are the ecological heroes."

One of the stupidest news stories on energy I've seen was a piece on CNN Money last week that said economists were "split" on whether renewable energy would create millions of new jobs. The article quoted experts at the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley, affirming that installing solar arrays, building wind farms and producing biomass would create at least a million new jobs, not vulnerable to offshore outsourcing. To counter them, the article quoted the chief economist at a Manhattan consultancy, who said it would be unrealistic to count on job gains in the solar sector since the technology hasn't taken off yet and there is no way of knowing if it ever will. "You certainly don't want to move all sorts of money into an area that's not going to be viable," he said.

Sadly, there are still too many people like this brain-dead economist running things in this country. And there are still too many unfortunates living in the past, such as the auto workers who have given up almost everything to hang on to production lines making Detroit Dinosaurs - those gas guzzlers no one will want in a few years' time when oil supply peaks and gas prices shoot up to the moon.

The future belongs to "Solar Richmond," and all we are waiting for now is for those who think they are in charge to catch up with rest of us so we can build this beautiful new future together.

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Paying the Peak Oil Power Bill
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Environmental Editor

Thursday 02 August 2007

Sometime this week, the House will vote on a new "energy independence" bill designed by the Democrats. Even though Congress just passed an omnibus energy bill in 2005, there is growing agreement on both sides of the aisle that the need for "energy security" is growing and more must be done to ensure it.

But just like the 2005 Energy Policy Act, the 2007 Energy Independence Day bill lacks any sort of comprehensive vision about our energy future or any bold initiative to grapple with it. Part of the reason for the piecemeal approach to energy is the deliberate cloaking of the most vital fact about energy - that we are running out of it much faster than most people realize. Terms like "energy independence" and "energy security" function to displace concerns about the resource limits of the earth onto conventional concerns about national security and war.

The real issue is not whether "our oil is under their sand," but the fact supplies of oil and gas worldwide are nearly at the point where they will no longer be able to easily meet demand. The shorthand term for this reality is "peak oil," or "peak fossil fuels."

At a press briefing last week, members of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus criticized a recent report from the National Petroleum Council (NPC) for obscuring the truth about peak oil. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) accused the NPC of fostering "a false sense of complacency" about oil supplies. He contrasted the NPC report with one from the International Energy Agency that was released at about the same time. That report, Udall said, sounded a "clarion call" and "said what needs to be said, that we're probably going to peak in the next couple of years. This could cause some very severe economic consequences and the world needs to start organizing and dealing with this."

Representative Bartlett (R-Maryland), another member of the Peak Oil Caucus, said the facts were buried in the NPC report if you knew where to look. He said graphs in the report showed world oil production has been flat for the last 30 months while, at the same time, the price has gone up from $40 to $75 a barrel.

But because the American public is not aware of the imminent peak, there is little pressure on Congress to take bold action on energy. That is why auto-industry champion Representative Dingell (D-Michigan) has gotten away with knocking auto fuel-efficiency standards clean off the table. House leaders won't even consider proposals to raise mileage standards in this bill - the debates would eat up all the time they have left before the August recess. Instead, they may try to bring the issue back up in global-warming legislation this fall.

One significant policy initiative that might get considered this week is a national Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that requires utilities to generate at least 20 percent of their electricity using renewable energy by 2020. It is not part of the bill currently, but may be added as an amendment.

Renewable portfolio standards already exist in 23 states, and the Senate has passed versions of a national RPS several times in recent years, but heavy lobbying pressure by some utilities kept it out of the Senate version of this energy legislation. So, if the idea is going to get any traction this year, it will have to start in the House.

The biggest noise against the bill has been coming from some utilities that serve the southeastern part of the country. They say the southeast does not have the abundant wind or solar resources other parts of the country have and a national RPS will raise power bills. The National Association of Manufacturers also complains of higher power costs, as does the conservative think tank, the National Center for Policy Analysis, in a press release titled, "Congress Set to Make Energy More Expensive."

Here's a news flash for the National Center for Policy Analysis: Congress won't make energy more expensive; the limits on natural resources will make energy more expensive, and if myopic business interests like NCPA and NAM continue to thwart progress on renewable energy, the United States is going to end up in deep energy poverty. Twenty-seven European countries have already agreed to get 20 percent of their energy from renewables by 2020, and India and China have similar targets. Where will we be in 2020 if we refuse to face the facts and never raise renewables above the paltry two percent they currently provide?

The arguments against a national RPS are extremely flimsy. Take the complaint by southerners that they have no renewable energy sources. The southeast may not have a lot of wind and its solar resource may not be as strong as in the southwest, but it does have more biomass than any other region. According to Leon Lowery, energy adviser to Senator Bingaman (D-New Mexico), biomass already produces twice as much electricity as wind.

Also, renewable energy credits can be traded, so the energy does not all have to be produced in the region. The south already imports gas, coal and uranium to generate electricity, so why not sun and wind? Besides, whatever happened to that cherished notion of Southern independence? You'd think the southern states would be eager to show some energy independence.

Critics of a national RPS also claim it is more efficient to continue with the current state-by-state RPS policies. Dr. Marilyn Brown, professor of energy policy at Georgia Tech, debunked this notion during a recent panel discussion on renewable standards. She said that a national standard has many benefits including increased economies of scale for rolling out new technologies more cost effectively. A national standard would also improve marketplace efficiency.

Dr. Brown said, "If our interstate highway system was structured like our renewable energy market, drivers would be forced to change their engines, maybe their tires, and probably their fuels, every time they cross state boundaries."

Quantifying the benefits of adopting a national RPS, she said, "If, in fact, 20 percent of our electricity in 2020 were to be provided by renewables, then we would be displacing the equivalent of 71 million cars from the nation's highways."

Some day soon, despite all the soothing words of the NPC, America will wake up to the reality of peak oil. Here is how the International Energy Agency describes the threat in their most recent report: "Despite four years of high oil prices, this report sees increasing market tightness beyond 2010, with OPEC spare capacity declining to minimal levels by 2012."

We have about four years to redesign our energy infrastructure. Congress could take a first step this week, by approving a national renewable portfolio standard. It might be time to give your snoozing representative a wake up call.