EST EST EST, CLIMATE-ENERGY BILL

Moment of truth for energy bill
Coral Davenport, July 12, 2010 (Politico)

"The next three weeks represent Democrats’ last, best shot at getting an energy and climate change bill passed this year…In the White House and the office of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, it’s moment-of-truth time…

"The majority leader is set to meet this week with the five Senate committee leaders who hold jurisdiction over slices of energy and climate legislation. He will give them a scaled-down menu of options prepared by his staff and tell them to assemble an energy package that could get 60 votes. The options will break down into three core elements…The first and easiest piece is a Gulf-spill response measure to reform offshore drilling and raise disaster liabilities on oil companies…The second element is a clean-energy bill that would require a boost in renewable electricity produced by sources such as wind and solar…The third, biggest and most contentious piece is a price on greenhouse gas emissions — a policy at the heart of the climate change debate…"

A recent NREL study showed more New Energy will come from a cap on emissions than from an RES (click thru for the NREL study)

"…[I]t’s almost certain that two, if not three, of the five leaders meeting with Reid will object to including any kind of carbon cap in the final package. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) fear that a carbon price will hurt their home-state economies. And Bingaman, although a strong supporter of climate change efforts that cap carbon, has said many times in recent weeks that he does not believe the votes are there to pass a climate measure this year.

"…[L]obbyists and staffers say they are already starting to see the contours of legislation that is likely to come to the Senate floor — an oil-reform plus clean-electricity measure that sidesteps limits on carbon emissions…President Barack Obama already appears to be laying the groundwork for such a measure…But lawmakers and clean-energy advocates say speeches aren’t enough. Once a bill is introduced, all sides say the only thing that can bring it home will be a strong, personal push from the president himself — on the road, on the phone and behind the scenes on the Hill…"

The RES is so compromised it could be worse than no bill (click thru for the study)

"…As the wrangling continues this week, one industry group will find itself increasingly at the center of the debate: electric utilities. Whether they face caps on carbon pollution or a bill that transforms how they buy and sell power, such as with the renewable mandate, utility companies will face a fundamental change in the way they do business…

"…One looming fight will be over the final terms of the renewable-electricity mandate…Bingaman’s clean-energy bill requires that 15 percent of the nation’s power come from clean, renewable sources, of which 4 percent could come from increased efficiency, for a final requirement of only 11 percent. Environmentalists are pushing to raise that number…[But] greens will come up against power plants, whose costs will rise as the clean-power requirement increases, as well as Republicans and southeastern Democrats like Lincoln, who says her state can’t produce the wind and solar power needed to meet a higher requirement…[E]nvironmentalists say they’re not giving up…"