| June 9, 2009 |  |
Senate Energy Bill’s "Anemic" Renewable Energy Provision Needs to Be Strengthened, Science Group Says
Proposed Standard Could Undermine Future of Renewable Energy
WASHINGTON (June 9, 2009) – Just before an expected vote today on a comprehensive energy package before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) pointed out that the bill's renewable electricity standard would do nothing to spur clean energy development in the United States. In fact, according to UCS, the standard the committee likely will approve today could undermine prospects for expanding the nation's burgeoning clean energy sector.
"This anemic standard would do absolutely nothing to promote clean electricity," said Marchant Wentworth, a UCS Washington representative. "What's worse, it could undercut state renewable energy programs. No one wants a federal bill that would take us backward. We'll be working closely with Committee Chairman Bingaman to make substantial improvements."
The Senate committee's standard would promote much less wind, solar, biomass and other renewable energy development than what the United States could affordably achieve, Wentworth said. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), would require as much as 2.8 percent less renewable energy development than what the Department of Energy projects current state policies and federal incentives would generate by 2021.
In addition, a glaring loophole in the proposed standard would allow utilities to virtually opt out of the requirement altogether, Wentworth said. Various federal renewable electricity standard proposals include an "alternative compliance payment" mechanism that would allow utilities to avoid meeting the renewable development requirement by paying a fee to the federal government, which would then return the money to the states to invest in clean energy projects. The current Senate committee proposal would allow governors to give these alternative compliance payments back to the utilities without requiring them to develop new renewable energy.
The Senate committee also adopted an amendment offered by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) that would explicitly allow alternative compliance payments to fund nuclear power plants and coal plants that capture and bury, or "sequester," their carbon dioxide emissions, a technology that has not as yet been shown to work on a commercial scale.
"The alternative compliance payment mechanism sounds obscure, but the way it is set up in this bill it would create a perverse incentive for utilities to make the alternative payment—even if it cost more than investing in renewables—because they would get all that money back with no strings attached," said Wentworth. "Meanwhile, Senator Bunning's amendment would create a slush fund for utilities to build new nuclear and coal power plants in the name of renewable energy. That's unacceptable. It has to be fixed or else this proposed standard is worse than having no standard at all."
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The Union of Concerned Scientists puts rigorous, independent science to work to solve our planet's most pressing problems. Joining with citizens across the country, we combine technical analysis and effective advocacy to create innovative, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.
