Roth: Climate-change bill: Special interests hard at work

July 13, 2009


The U.S. House of Representatives was closely divided when it recently passed a climate-change bill. Senate leaders are preparing for an even tougher fight. What began with relatively clear positions, the environmentalists on one side and the fossil fuel industries on the other, has evolved into a complex array of players.

Politically there will be no less than six Senate committees crafting the bill. Barbara Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee will play a major role, but the Agriculture; Commerce, Science and Transportation; Energy and Natural Resources; Finance; and Foreign Relations committees are expected to get involved.

Environmental groups initially united are now somewhat divided after the House version passed. Some welcomed the bill, while others criticized the generous concessions to the coal and nuclear energy lobbies. They also found fault in the scaling back of the greenhouse gas reduction target and the giving away of the majority of pollution credits, instead of auctioning them. One of the nation’s most outspoken climate scientists, NASA’s James Hansen, warned, “The danger is that special interests will dilute and torque government policies, causing the climate to pass tipping points, with grave consequences for all life on the planet.”

Strong support for the climate bill comes from alternative energy, green building, green jobs and industry coalitions like the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. Alternative-energy companies are pursuing opportunities that result from new commitments to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The stronger the penalties on fossil fuel users, the better their competitive position.

Environmental advocates, including the mainstream Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council, view the proliferation of voices as a positive. Corporate giants such as General Electric, Alcoa, DuPont and Duke Energy, all members of the Climate Action Partnership, along with private equity firms and new financial players, have united with pro-climate action politicians, including President Barack Obama, who advocate the “cap and trade” system. But the Climate Action Partnership’s policy positions are raising some eyebrows, especially with their calls for massive funding of yet-unproven CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) technology for power plant smokestacks.

Other interest groups weighing in are Wall Street banks and groups of little-known carbon-focused financial players. They see an opportunity to buy and sell emissions “permits” under the proposed bill. Thus, the finance industry has as large a lobbying force on climate as the alternative-energy industry.

The nation’s largest and most powerful industry groups, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, are now leading voices against the bill as passed by the House. Their position has support from Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase.

No group exemplifies the level of interest more than the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Representing 48 mining firms, coal-hauling railroads and coal-burning power companies, ACCCE spent $9.95 million lobbying in 2008. And that’s just the amount disclosed by the association, let alone the 40 coal companies and related interests. Electricity is largest single source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the most carbon-intensive fuel, coal, still provides half the nation’s power. There’s no technology today that removes the carbon out of coal-fired power and many even question the possibility of “clean coal.”

In 2003, there were fewer than five alternative-energy industry lobbyists registered, but by 2008 there were more than 130, representing not only wind and solar, but other technologies like geothermal, waste-to-energy and recycled heat.

Green groups like the Sierra Club have been joined by a new wave of interests from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the Evangelical Environmental Network. Combine alternative energy and environmental/health lobbyists, and they are still outnumbered by all other interests, more than 8-to-1.

Finally, there are the cities, public transit agencies, universities and others seeking a piece of the pie. The climate program will generate revenue when power plants and other polluting companies have to buy federal permits to continue emitting carbon dioxide.

Because of the economic crisis, there is a waning public groundswell for climate action. President Obama’s approach has been to address climate and the economy together.

Do we move forward with this legislation, even if imperfect, and try to improve it as it goes along in the Senate? The alternative choice is to have no comprehensive federal legislation and let our children deal with it.

But then again, adopting a bad bill full of handouts for coal polluters while acting like we’ve done something meaningful is no way to pass the baton to the next generation either.

Stay tuned, America – your Congress, and their special interests, have a heated battle brewing over our hotter Earth.

Jim Roth, a former Oklahoma corporation commissioner, is an attorney with Phillips Murrah P.C. in Oklahoma City, where his practice focuses on clean, green energy for Oklahoma.

http://www.journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recid=100518