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Source: Politico
A coal and utility industry coalition has launched a major campaign pushing industrial and farm state Democratic senators to boost coal-friendly provisions in the Senate climate and energy bill.
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a lobbying group reviled by environmentalists, plans to target Democrats at home over the August recess with online, radio, billboard and, likely, television advertising. The message: Coal power plants can be clean and are necessary to produce low-cost energy for consumers and business. One of its billboards shows an electric cord being plugged into a lump of coal with the slogan, “A climate bill needs to protect Ohio jobs.”
The coalition also plans to deploy teams to question senators at town hall meetings, advertise at state fairs and other summer events and visit lawmakers’ offices back home.
“As you see the climate debate unfold, there are people that are interested in only achieving emissions reduction, but if we don’t do that in a way that promotes continued economic prosperity, we will have not succeeded in developing the right policy,” said Joe Lucas, the coalition’s vice president of communications.
The group’s membership includes major coal, utility and railroad companies and claims a grass-roots force of 200,000 people, called “America’s power army.” Its annual budget is more than $40 million.
The climate and energy bill passed by the House in late June included tens of billions of dollars to promote carbon capture and sequestration — a technology heralded as “clean coal” by industry but questioned by other analysts who doubt its environmental benefit.
All the backing for coal, say environmentalists, increases the difficulty of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and getting new, cleaner fuels, such as solar and wind power, into the market.
“We have made clear that before this gets to the president’s desk, it has to address the lack of many measures in the bill to address the existing fleet of coal-fired power plants,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign. “If the bill stands as written, we will oppose it, because it doesn’t address the pollution problems, and it doesn’t get you the jobs.”
America’s Natural Gas Alliance, a coalition of natural gas producers and pipeline companies, is also lobbying to make the Senate version of the legislation less coal-friendly.
The conflict around coal will increase the difficulty of passing Senate legislation for Democrats, who need the support of environmental groups but also must win the votes of moderates from Midwestern states that derive a significant portion of their energy from coal-powered plants.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said that his primary concern with the bill is the impact it would have on consumers. In 2006, Nebraska got roughly two-thirds of its fuel from coal, according to data from the Energy Department.
“The cost-benefit analysis of what it does to business, what it does to agriculture, what it does to private residents at a time when the economy is already in turmoil — those are questions you’ve got to get answered,” Nelson said.
The clean-coal coalition’s lobbying push, announced last week, also comes as coal power faces new obstacles.
The recession has hit coal plants hard, with analysts saying the coal sector will have to cut production by 50 million tons this year. A massive toxic coal ash spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority coal plant last December has also raised an increasing number of questions about the safety of coal plants. And a July report from energy researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center showed that electricity costs could double (but might drop some over time) at plants that capture and store carbon dioxide emissions — the technology that coal supporters hope will be the next, low-carbon version of coal power. The coalition wants to expand the coal-focused provisions in the Senate draft.
The House bill would reduce emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. And coal industry lobbyists want to weaken those targets in the Senate legislation.
The coalition wants to maximize the number of offsets available, or the credits utilities can buy from low-carbon emitters to reduce their total emissions. Environmental advocates say the coalition is trying to stall the bill to prevent any significant new regulation.
But Lucas says the group wants to get legislation that not only would help the environment but wouldn’t raise rates for consumers and business.
“This is about getting the right bill. This is not about meeting any type of need to do this by this date or whatever,” said Lucas. “It’s incumbent upon us to show the world that we can design a program that will allow us to reduce emissions and at the same time have sustained economic prosperity.”
Green groups criticize the coalition for its work popularizing the term “clean coal” to refer to the technology of capturing and storing carbon emissions. Environmentalists, who are skeptical of the technology’s potential, say the term perpetuates the myth that coal can be a clean fuel. “They need new campaigns to be able to repackage an old dirty product,” said Nilles of the Sierra Club.
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