Democratic heavyweights affirmed plans today for a sweeping overhaul of U.S. energy and climate policy with a digitized electricity-transmission grid, expanded renewable energy and a price signal on greenhouse gas emissions.
Speaking at a Washington gathering hosted by the liberal Center for American Progress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to build from "clean energy" provisions in the $790 billion economic stimulus law that President Obama signed last week.
"We all must partner and focus on energy investments," Reid said, describing his own plan to introduce national grid legislation this week that would designate renewable energy zones -- a measure similar to legislation he introduced last year.
The Nevada Democrat's bill also calls for a "massive planning effort" to maximize the use of renewable energy zones in each of three interconnection grids. "If that process falters," he said in a statement, "then the federal government would be given clear authority to keep it going and get that new transmission built on schedule."
Pelosi said one of her top priorities was to set a national renewable electricity standard. "We must do the renewable electricity standard to the highest possible standard," the California Democrat said, citing Obama's campaign pledge for a 25 percent goal by 2025 and House-passed legislation last year that included a 15 percent goal by 2020.
"The renewable energy resource, the rebuilding of the grid, they're tied together, and addressing climate change, in my view, must be part of the same package if we're going to accomplish what we need to do if we're going to take the country in a new direction on renewable and clean energy," Pelosi said.
While Pelosi's comments suggest she is leaning toward action this year on one big energy and global warming package, a House Democratic aide explained that the speaker actually has not made a decision on the legislative sequencing.
Reid wants to move an energy bill this spring through the Senate and then move forward later this summer on a climate bill centered around a cap-and-trade program.
Some of the biggest names in Democratic politics surrounded Pelosi and Reid at today's event, including former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Al Gore, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and John Podesta, the former Clinton White House chief of staff who led Obama's transition team.
In his opening remarks, Clinton highlighted the political force behind clean energy advocates, who he said have not lost steam even amid dire economic forecasts and sinking oil prices. "That, to me, is one of the bright spots of these last few tough months, this coalition held together," Clinton said.
Podesta, also the Center for American Progress' president and CEO, said a coalition he has organized with Reid and other Democrats has already contributed a great deal to the billions of dollars available for clean energy in the economic stimulus.
"A lot of the ideas on the table at that forum made their way into the recovery bill, and I hope a lot of these efforts will make their way into the [energy] bill" that Reid plans to move this year, Podesta said.
Also today, Podesta endorsed a plan from the Energy Future Coalition, released last week, that proposes solutions to the energy transmission dilemma by giving siting authority to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission while giving states a role in the decision-making at an early stage of grid planning (E&ENews PM, Feb. 20).
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has the lead in writing the next Senate energy bill. One of the key issues likely to be in Bingaman's legislation centers on a new national clean energy grid -- a key topic of today's panel discussion because of the potential reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and growth in renewable energy.
The new stimulus law includes more than $17 billion that Pelosi deemed as "so essential" to weaning the nation from its dependence on foreign oil and accelerating the generation of renewable energy. "In doing so, we not only captured the grid but so much else in the bill," she said.
But everyone agreed the stimulus was merely a first step in creating a national grid that could bring the renewable energy to the city demand centers or meet a potential national renewable energy standard that would require states to obtain a certain amount of their electricity from renewable energy.
"Ultimately, we want to get to 25 percent by 2025 or 30 percent by 2030, or even beyond that ... so much of that depends on transmission," Salazar said. "At the end of the day, unless we are able to solve this juggernaut ... and deal with the transmission issue, we are merely going to be standing in place."
Salazar said Interior, Congress and stakeholders need to be "focused like a laser beam" on transmission.
Tim Wirth, president of the U.N. Foundation and a former Colorado senator, said the transmission issue should be a case study on how to create a new model for collaboration and a shift in rules to tackle these new issues.
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