Public Power Districts and Cooperatives OPPOSE Senate Bill 1733...YOU SHOULD TOO!

Go to www.ourenergy.coop to voice your opposition to your senators.

On the eve of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s markup of S. 1733, “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” Glenn English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, indicated in a letter to Senator Boxer that the association intends to oppose the bill unless substantial changes are made.

While praising the efforts to improve the bill by several committee members, including Senators Max Baucus (D-MT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Tom Udall (D-NM), English expressed disappointment that even with the revisions, the plan is unfair to consumers and, in several respects, represents a step backward from the climate change legislation passed by the House in June.

Writing on behalf of 930 electric cooperatives and their 42 million consumer members, English reiterated concern outlined in an earlier letter to Chairman Boxer that the formula for allocating emission allowances would be unfair to rural consumers in certain regions, primarily the Midwest and Southeast.

Not only does the Senate bill retain the fundamentally flawed allocation formula included in the House version, the percent of total allowances given to the local distribution companies is reduced from 30 percent to about 25 percent. According to government projections, 80 percent of the emissions reductions called for in the climate change proposals under consideration come from the electricity sector. Even with additional allowances secured for cooperatives by Senators Baucus, Klobuchar and Udall, preliminary estimates indicate cooperatives would receive 20 million fewer allowances in just the first year of the program under S. 1733.

English pointed to the bill’s attempt to protect consumers from volatility in the carbon market with a “Market Stability Fund” as an improvement over the House version, but urged the Senate to set a “clear upper limit on the cost of emission allowances.” To protect consumers, “the legislation should include a strong cost containment mechanism that guarantees prices will not rise above a certain level, such as a safety valve or ‘hard’ price collar.”

From: www.cooperative.com; November 3, 2009

The Consequences of Failure

From "The Economist" dated November 19, 2009...(www.economist.com)
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Back in the Senate, fear that cap-and-trade will be painted as a murky, confusing job-killer and a bureaucratic hassle makes Democrats in conservative states nervous. They include Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu and both senators from North Dakota. Head counts fall far short of the 60 votes required to ensure passage.

The gamut of committees that the bill must pass in the Senate may yet save it, though probably at a hefty price. Barbara Boxer, the chairman of the environment committee, plans to submit her version of the bill later in September. Her starting point may be the bill that passed the House energy committee, a greener bill than the one that passed the full House. This was weakened by concessions to farmers and other giveaways at the last hurdle in order to secure House passage.

Then the Senate committees can set about adding pork. The Senate (with two members per state, no matter how empty) represents agriculture more heavily than the House. Paul Bledsoe of the National Commission on Energy Policy reckons that extra incentives to farmers, at first pared back from House bill levels, may be added in higher amounts later in the process to help bring Senate moderates on board. (Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, has been busily promoting action on climate as a way of boosting farm incomes, since farmers can earn “offsets” from polluting industries by reducing their own greenhouse-gas emissions.) Read this article (www.kearneyhub.com) from a local newspaper about farmers and their concern about cap and trade promises. More support for nuclear power (nearly emissions-free, but controversial) could bring back a few centrist Republicans. Attention to natural gas—nearly absent from the House bill, but produced in 32 states—could help as well.

After Bill Clinton’s health-care reform fell apart it took 16 years to revisit the issue. Climate-change purists should bear in mind the consequences of failure. “If this bill goes down,” says Joe Romm, a senior fellow at the Democrat-leaning Centre for American Progress, “it will be a very long time before we come back to it. [And] I don’t see how the international process survives.”
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Gwen Kautz, Customer Service Manager
Dawson Public Power District

HISTORY IN THE MAKING: Committee Advances Cap and Trade

In December's issue of the Dawson Dynamo, General Manager Bob Heinz gives you concrete facts about the cap and trade legislation. Further, the Environment and Public Works committee advanced the cap and trade legislation in an unprecedented move. Watch this video:



Voice your opinion by going to www.ourenergy.coop and contacting your state senator TODAY!

Gwen Kautz, Customer Service Manager
Dawson Public Power District

SENATOR NELSON ON CAP AND TRADE

CNBC interviews Senator Nelson about healthcare but before they talk about that issue, Senator Nelson talks about cap and trade.

Climate Bill Clears Senate Committee 10-1

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL - 2009 NOV 05

A Senate committee cleared its version of a climate and energy bill, despite a Republican boycott of the vote and a "no" from powerful Montana Democrat Max Baucus.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's 11-1 vote to approve the climate proposal may have little long term significance in shaping the final bill. Negotiations to shape a Senate climate bill have already moved beyond the committee and its chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.). Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) is working with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Connecticut independent Sen. Joe Lieberman to develop a compromise package that would give more benefits to the oil and nuclear-power industries.

The vote tally was initially given as 10-1. Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware showed up after the vote and said he would have voted "yes." The panel changed the tally to reflect his support.

Republican members of the committee boycotted the vote to protest a lack of a complete analysis of its potential economic impact. Republicans have called the Senate climate measure and a similar measure passed by the House of Representatives a "tax" that the country can ill-afford at a time of high unemployment and economic uncertainty.

It isn't clear how much progress Senate Democrats will make on the climate issue before a United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December, where global leaders are supposed to discuss a new international treaty on climate change.

Mr. Baucus's no vote highlighted the doubts among Democrats from states dependent on coal and manufacturing about the Boxer proposal.

The proposal approved by Environment and Public Works committee Democrats calls for a 20% cut in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020. Lawmakers from coal-dependent states say that target will hurt their economies. When the House of Representatives cleared a companion measure earlier this year, it was able to win support for reductions of only 17% by 2020.

Lawmakers from some manufacturing states have told President Barack Obama that any climate bill should allow for tariffs on goods from countries that don't adopt climate policies comparable to those of the U.S.

Farm interests are also flexing their muscles as negotiations continue, pushing for bigger financial rewards for activities that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

Gwen Kautz, Customer Service Manager
Dawson Public Power District

Cap and Trade COMMON SENSE

Public power districts and electric cooperatives are prepared to work with Congress to develop responsible climate change legislation.  We would like to urge congress to:

• Oppose auctioning allowances in the electricity sector
• Give allowances to retail electric utilities, based upon CO2 emissions associated with the production of electricity sold by the retail utility.
• Set CO2 caps consistent with the commercial availability of technology.
• Do not allow Wall Street speculators to set electricity rates by treating CO2 allowance as just another money-making commodity.

Gwen Kautz, Customer Service Manager
Dawson Public Power District