MURKOWSKI CITES LACK OF CONSENSUS AS REASON FOR OPPOSITION TO CES BILL

Farris Willingham
GHG Monitor
06/08/12

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said earlier this week that she decided not to support a Clean Energy Standard in this Congress due to what she describes as a lack of consensus on the issue from stakeholders. During a June 5 speech at an energy forum hosted by the law firm Arent Fox and George Washington University, Murkowski said that after vetting the possibility of a standard with stakeholders last spring and discussing the issue with other committee members, she found little consensus with which to work. Murkowski and Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) asked stakeholders for feedback on policy preferences for a CES, an ideal timeline and whether a national standard was appropriate to increase the country’s domestic energy supply in a white paper published in March 2011. They received a variety of responses, Murkowski said, leaving doubt as to whether any sort of consensus on the issue could be reached. “What we didn’t get back was a consensus about what it would look like, how it would work,” she said. “Even within industry, there was not a level of consensus about what a clean energy standard would look like.” That lack of a clear convergence of views, combined with several other factors, were cause for her not to co-sponsor CES legislation with Bingaman, which he introduced earlier this spring.

The measure would require utilities to generate 24 percent of their electricity from ‘clean’ energy sources in 2015, ramping up the amount by 3 percent per year through 2035, when 84 percent of generation would be required to come from clean sources. The legislation would award whole and partial clean energy credits based on emissions intensity per unit of electricity. Sources such as renewables and nuclear would receive full credits under the plan since they have zero emissions, while fossil fuel generation from natural gas and coal with carbon capture and storage would garner partial credits proportional to emissions rates. An Energy Information Administration analysis of the standard released last month concluded that coal-fired power generation would “decrease significantly” under the plan, falling 25 percent below reference case baseline figures in 2025 and 54 percent in 2035. The analysis expects natural gas and nuclear—and to a smaller extent renewables—to fill the void in generating capacity left by retiring coal units. The measure, however, is widely expected to fail during this Congress due to a lack of support.

Competition with State Portfolio Standards

In her speech this week, Murkowski echoed remarks she made at a hearing last month, voicing concerns about a federal CES providing extra red tape and confusion for the nearly 30 other states with their own clean portfolio standards already in place. She said more clarity needs to be established about how a federal CES would affect state schemes before she could support such a policy. “I have concerns with primarily the fact that the Bingaman legislation doesn’t allow for preemption of other standards that might be out there. If we’re going to advance a concept like a clean energy standard, I’d like to make sure that we know what that definition is but it’s not further complicated by other standards that have been put in place,” Murkowski said.

As Murkowski has eyed the chairmanship of the Senate Energy Committee, which will likely be hers to earn if Republicans win control of the upper chamber in November, she has backed off the idea of a CES. In previous years, Murkowski helped co-sponsor and shepherd stricter renewable electricity standards through the Senate with Bingaman. However, none of those efforts yielded much on the Senate floor, and no such standards were adopted. Last summer, Bingaman told reporters that Murkowski said she would only support his current CES proposal if it replaces a series of controversial air pollution regulations currently being promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Murkowski this week lamented that energy issues have not appeared to be a priority for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) during the current 112th Congress. She mentioned several pieces of legislation that passed the Senate Energy Committee with bipartisan support but have failed to get any time on the Senate floor. “I think part of it is competition with other issues and part of it is failure to make [energy] a priority,” she said. “The majority leader is the one who makes the determination as to what we’re going to be bringing up next, and it hasn’t been high on his priority list, which I think is unfortunate. It’s an issue of competing priorities and not putting it as high up on the list as many of us would like.”