US utility leaders virtually rule out climate bill in 2010: Platts Energy Week TV
Washington - August 2, 2010
Also featured: Wind energy’s future, DOD & DOE team on technology, BP update
The presidents of two national electric-utility organizations said Sunday there is virtually no chance Congress will enact climate-change legislation in 2010, following the collapse of talks in the Senate in July.
"I think it's very, very slim at this point in time," Edison Electric Institute's Tom Kuhn said of prospects for reconsideration of proposals to curb greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, oil refineries and other facilities. View interview at this link.
"It's too close to an election and there's too much partisanship right now," Kuhn said on the all-energy news, issues and policy television program Platts Energy Week.
Mark Crisson of American Public Power Association (APPA) agreed with Kuhn's outlook.
"The prospects of putting a price on carbon through a climate title--effectively an energy tax--in this economy and this political environment are pretty remote," Crisson said on the program.
President Barack Obama last week continued to call on Congress to pass climate-change legislation, and Senator John Kerry, Democrat-Massachusetts, a leading advocate of such a measure, indicated he may try to rekindle the issue in a lame-duck session following the November congressional elections.
Kuhn and Crisson also agreed that legislation on climate change, with provisions to mitigate the impact of emissions reductions on consumers, remains preferable to regulation by the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) under the existing Clean Air Act.
"We would like to see something along the lines of a two-year delay," Crisson said when asked by program host Bill Loveless if Congress should stop EPA from acting.
Bills in the Senate and the House would stop EPA from regulating greenhouse gases for two years to give lawmakers more time to work out a legislative solution. The agency plans to begin regulating the emissions next year.
Kuhn did not endorse proposals to stop EPA, but said opposition to agency action on the issue is widespread.
"I have not heard anyone say, from the president to Democrats to Republicans, that EPA is the best way to do this," he said.
Kuhn and Crisson differed, however, over cap-and-trade as a mechanism for controlling greenhouse-gas emissions. A bill passed by the House last year and measures proposed by Kerry and other advocates of action on climate change rely on cap-and-trade.
"If you're going to have a price on carbon, and I think we need to if we're going to move forward, I think cap-and-trade is the best way to go," Kuhn said.
But Crisson said public utilities are skeptical of that approach.
"We have some concerns about cap-and-trade that continue," Crisson said. Among them, is APPA’s view that proposals provide insufficient emission allowances for utilities? “While it's failed to gain support, I wouldn't necessarily say it's off the table or dead," he said. "But this may provide an opportunity to explore other options."
Sunday’s Platts Energy Week also featured an update on BP and the U.S. Gulf oil spill by Platts Director of News John Kingston; an update on the future of wind in the nation’s alternative energy mix with Jim Lanard, President of the Offshore Wind Coalition; and Bill Loveless also spoke with (Ret.) U.S. Naval Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn about coordination efforts between the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Energy regarding innovative energy technology as the United States continues its efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil.
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