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Alexander warns climate change legislation would be job killer

Published October 26th, 2009 | 0 Comments

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander warned Monday that proposed Senate climate change legislation would “deliberately kill jobs and make Americans poorer.”

The 900-page Senate bill, which is being considered this week in the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, is similar to House legislation that would place future caps on the overall amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

Alexander, a committee member and chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, called for legislators to start over on the bill.

“There’s so much noise on both sides of this (climate change) issue it’s hard to know the truth,” the Tennessee Republican said in a conference call with reporters. “I don’t have an issue with the problem. The national academy of sciences of 11 industrialized countries, including our own national academy, have said that climate change is real and humans have caused most of the recent warming, and that’s plenty of evidence for me. If a fire chief said my house was likely to burn down, I’d buy some fire insurance. My problem is with the solution. If my house was about to burn down, I wouldn’t buy the most expensive insurance, and I wouldn’t buy insurance that was so expensive that I couldn’t pay my mortgage or hospital bill.”

Alexander’s climate change solution includes building 100 new nuclear power plants, electrifying half the nation’s cars and trucks, expanding offshore natural gas and oil exploration, and launching what he called “mini Manhattan projects” to find ways to recapture carbon from coal plants and make solar power cost competitive.

“That will get us where we want to go at a low cost,” Alexander said of his solution.

But President Barack Obama’s administration is expected to press for climate change legislation before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works today.

Those scheduled to testify before the committee include Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff.

The Senate climate change legislation was introduced by U.S. Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., along with Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Kerry, in a news release timed with the bill’s late September introduction, said the so-called “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” would cut carbon pollution and stimulate the economy by creating millions of jobs in the clean energy sector.

The bill includes a Pollution Reduction and Investment (PRI) mechanism that applies only to the largest polluters in the country — about 7,500 facilities accounting for nearly three-quarters of U.S. carbon pollution.

Those polluters, according to the bill, would be required to turn in one “carbon credit,” or a voucher for the right to pollute one ton of carbon.

The vouchers could be bought or sold, and by limiting the total number of vouchers available in a given year, the legislation indicates the PRI mechanism makes it profitable to reduce pollution and allows America to meet hard targets for carbon reduction.

“Under PRI’s incentives, renewable fuel sources such as wind and solar will become increasingly central to the way Americans use energy...” the bill’s summary pointed out. “PRI will help the coal industry to reinvent itself as a clean, homegrown energy source. Our most efficient coal producers will be rewarded for installing advanced technology to capture and store carbon pollution.”

More than 98 percent of America’s businesses aren’t covered by the bill, the summary added.

In a report issued on the legislation’s economic impact, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated the nation’s agricultural sector could reap $1.2 billion to $18.8 billion in annual benefits.

For more about the bill go to www.thomas.gov. The bill’s number is S. 1733.

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