Businessweek Columnist Examines Congressional Inaction on Climate

In a Businessweek column, Eric Pooley, deputy editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and author of "The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth," writes that the Senate inactivity on climate and energy issues "cedes" the U.S. energy race to China. Pooley calls a cap on carbon emissions from the electric power sector and a national renewable electricity standard the two "most powerful clean energy provisions" that have been debated and which should be in legislation this year.

Wrote Pooley: "For years, business leaders from General Electric Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt to venture capitalist John Doerr have warned that if America failed to pass a comprehensive climate-and-energy bill, the country risked losing the clean energy race to China -- sacrificing the jobs of the future in a timid, ill-fated effort to preserve the jobs of the past. Now those warnings are coming true."


While the stalemate on the carbon cap was likely a partisan discourse, Pooley states: "The disappearance of the renewable energy standard, however, was a shock. Both the House and Senate have passed RES bills in the past, yet it has never become law. With elections looming, this may be the last chance for years to set the rules of the road for energy investment."


Pooley noted that utility CEOs such as Lew Hay of Next-Era Energy, Ralph Izzo of PSEG, and Jim Rogers of Duke Energy "have all said they are ready to invest in clean energy just as soon as Congress establishes a carbon cap that creates a clear, steady price signal for dirty fuel--in effect, pricing in some of the social costs of carbon pollution that have never been part of America's energy bill."

Lacking a better idea, Pooley wrote that there are a variety of alternative steps that Congress could take, based on trial balloons that have been floated: "One such idea is a Green Bank that would leverage Treasury Department money for low-interest loans to projects that can’t attract conventional financing because their path to profitability is too long." Kenneth Berlin, a Green Bank proponent and cap-and-trade supporter who heads the environmental practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, was quoted as saying: "I don’t know if it really amounts to a Plan B; It's more like Plan D, but it would be far, far better than nothing."