Thread: CAP AND TRADE: What's Being Said- Texas Newspapers

House narrowly OKs sweeping climate change bill

11:15 PM CDT on Friday, June 26, 2009
By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News
dmichaels@dallasnews.com

WASHINGTON – The House approved sweeping legislation Friday that seeks to reduce global warming by limiting the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by power and chemical plants, oil refineries and major manufacturers.

The narrow House passage, 219-212, is a victory for President Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who pushed the measure through despite worries about reshaping the U.S. energy landscape during a recession and the likelihood that it will push up electricity and fuel prices.

Only a smattering of Republicans voted for the bill, which divided the business lobby into one camp that opposed it outright and another that supported its array of lucrative incentives for companies that clean up.

"This is a transformative moment," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said on the House floor. "This is a moment to create jobs in America. This is a moment to take on at long last a defining challenge of our time – global warming."

The 1,200-page bill, which must be passed by the Senate, has significant implications for Texas, the nation's leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.

The state's power and chemical plants, refineries and cement manufacturers would have to satisfy new limits on heat-trapping emissions by submitting pollution credits, which they would get for free during the early years of the program.

Those businesses are significant employers in some parts of Texas. Perhaps more important, they are capital-intensive industries that have an outsized impact on economic activity and income when they contract.

"We are just reminding [lawmakers] about the amount of production in their districts and the amount of jobs that upstream gas production provides to this state," said Adam P. Haynes, president of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association.

A wide range of companies based in North Texas lobbied on the legislation, including Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp., Exxon Mobil, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and Texas Instruments.

Many of them were as concerned about the pollution cap as other provisions in the far-reaching bill, which creates a mandate for electricity production from renewable sources, new energy-efficient building codes and subsidies for agricultural projects that reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

It also contains subsidies for projects that seek to remove the carbon dioxide from coal-burning plants and effectively bars today's dirty coal plants from being permitted after 2020.

The bill now heads to the Senate, where Republicans said that the close vote in the House doesn't bode well for its eventual passage. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that he hoped his chamber would debate the legislation in the fall.

Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn of Texas both said they oppose the concept of cap and trade.

"President Obama's cap-and-trade legislation disproportionately attacks energy-producing states like Texas, devastating Texas' energy industry and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on it," Hutchison said in a statement.

Republicans, who called the bill an energy tax, have more influence in the Senate, even though their numbers are diminished from last year, when a similar measure failed.

The cost of the legislation, and its impact on output and employment, is a major source of debate.

Higher energy costs for businesses and consumers are inevitable, according to economists. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the regulations would cost the average household about $175 a year.

Republicans and industry-funded studies predict the costs would be much higher. In a letter sent last week to Texas lawmakers, Comptroller Susan Combs said higher energy prices could reduce economic output by $10 billion to $20 billion and cut as many as 277,000 jobs by 2012, when the regulations would go into effect.

Studies by liberal groups say the legislation would spur millions of jobs in green energy. That would be good for Texas, which according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, is home to more clean-energy jobs than any state except California.

"While the dramatic shift we need in our energy policy and the dire scientific predictions regarding global warming demand that we do much more, the first step is always the hardest, and Congress should be applauded for taking it," said Luke Metzger, director of Environment Texas, which lobbied Texas Democrats to support the legislation.

Most oil and gas companies and their lobbying arms in Washington opposed the legislation, saying it would cause gasoline prices to rise.

That made the vote difficult for Texas Democrats, who were pressed to support the measure by Obama and Pelosi.

Rep. Chet Edwards, who opposed the bill, said he was urged to support it by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Pelosi.

"I basically said to them my overriding concern was this bill could raise utility and energy costs for hardworking families and businesses, and could have an especially negative impact on oil, gas and coal-producing states such as Texas," Edwards said.

Edwards, D-Waco, said his office received "several thousand calls" from constituents who were "overwhelmingly, 8 or 9 to 1," against the bill.

Most other Texas Democrats, including Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas, supported the measure. Reps. Solomon Ortiz of Corpus Christi and Ciro Rodriguez of San Antonio voted no.

Rep. Joe Barton of Arlington managed the Republican opposition to the bill, which climaxed when Rep. John Boehner, the Republican leader, raised numerous questions about the bill during a floor speech that lasted more than an hour.

Barton, a skeptic of climate change, said the bill would "make us a second-rate economic power" and mocked Democrats for the dozens of concessions they made to industry groups to pass the legislation.

Indeed, while a legislative report said the bill contained no earmarks, one Florida Democrat won a pledge of support of $50 million for a proposed hurricane research facility in his district in Orlando, according to The Associated Press.

"If you haven't made your deal yet, come on down to the floor," Barton said.

BILL PROVISIONS
The climate bill approved Friday by the House calls for:

• Reducing greenhouse gases by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 through a cap-and-trade program that allows pollution permits to be bought and sold.

• Limiting emissions from major industrial sources, including power plants, factories, refineries, and electricity and natural gas distributors. Emissions from agriculture would be excluded from the cap.

• Requiring electric utilities to produce at least 12 percent of their power from renewable sources such wind and solar energy by 2020 and requiring as much as 8 percent in energy-efficiency savings.

• Imposing tighter performance standards on new coal-fired power plants and providing $1 billion a year in development money for capturing carbon dioxide from such plants.

• Establishing standards that will require new buildings to be 30 percent more energy-efficient by 2012 and 50 percent more efficient by 2016.

• Protecting consumers from rising energy costs by giving rebates and credits to low-income households.

SOURCE: The Associated Press

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