By Frank Davies
    The San Jose Mercury News

    Monday 23 July 2007

Inaction on national greenhouse gas proposals makes state's job tougher.

    Washington - The fervor to do something about global warming has reached new heights this summer, as huge crowds worldwide vowed to reduce carbon emissions during Live Earth concerts on every continent. These days, everyone from Wal-Mart to the Vatican is going green.

    But the reality has been very different on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Last month, supporters of a plan requiring utilities to produce 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources - solar, wind, biomass - said they had more than 50 votes. But they didn't have 60, the hurdle an idea must clear in the Senate to remain alive, so that proposal did not even come up for a vote.

    The Senate did take a significant action by voting to increase fuel efficiency in new vehicles by 40 percent to average 35 mpg by 2020, long a legislative goal of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. It would be the first time Congress has imposed standards in 32 years - but so far, the House has yet to take any action.

    Halfway through the legislative year, the report card for Congress on global warming initiatives - a priority for the new Democratic majority when it took over in January - is a big "incomplete." Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, the state's two senators and both Democrats, have had to celebrate small victories: mandates for more energy efficiency in federal buildings, and a $2 million program to better measure greenhouse gas emissions.

    Broader measures, though, have been stymied by opposition from the White House, hostility from industry, and the procedural thicket in the nation's capital that bogs down even the most promising ideas.

    The House plans to take up an energy bill in the next two weeks that focuses on efficiency. But plans for greater vehicle fuel economy and the renewable-sources standard for utilities will probably have to wait for this fall.

    The prospects for the rest of the year are murky, and California has a lot at stake.

    Democratic leaders support some ambitious plans, but if Congress delays enacting national targets for serious emissions reductions, that could make California's pioneering initiatives to slash emissions more difficult and costly for state residents.

    Boxer, who chairs the environmental committee, and Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the energy committee, pledged to advance major bills this year to reduce carbon emissions. Many Democrats and some key Republicans, such as John Warner of Virginia, now support a "cap and trade" system that would allow those industries that get under a mandated emissions cap to trade credits to those that don't.

    Why So Slow?

    But there are many reasons that cap-and-trade plans and renewable-energy standards are moving slowly - notably opposition from coal and oil lobbies and the unknown costs to consumers.

    "People grasp higher fuel efficiency for cars - it saves money and makes us more energy independent," said Ross Baker, a Rutgers University political-science professor and longtime observer of Congress. "But cap and trade is so esoteric, with its own specialized vocabulary. Finding solutions to global warming quickly becomes very complicated."

    Another important factor is the Bush administration's resistance to any mandatory controls. Bush officials censored some scientific findings and downplayed dire predictions of climate change. So far, the administration has opposed the efforts of California and 12 other states to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

    "It may take at least two more years and a new administration" to enact meaningful legislation, said Shawn Cooper, Washington spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric, the state's largest utility and an ally of California lawmakers seeking to boost fuel efficiency and limit emissions. "On the plus side, Congress is under pressure because more states and regions are taking actions on their own."

    Christine Todd Whitman, Bush's first Environmental Protection Agency chief, made a similar prediction. In a recent speech, she said a market-based cap-and-trade system will work, modeled after the successful acid rain control program, "but carbon regulation probably won't happen before 2008."

    When California enacted its own far-reaching emissions controls, state leaders said they expected the nation, and even the world, to follow. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has forged agreements with several Western states and Canadian provinces looking toward a cap-and-trade system, but a national program and eventually an international system is far preferable, say industry and environmental leaders.

    "A market-based system is more efficient and cheaper if it is larger, and a national system would be best," said Josh Bushinsky, Western policy coordinator for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

    Utilities' Challenges

    California utilities also face a difficult task in meeting a requirement by 2010 that 20 percent of power is generated from renewable sources. Right now PG&E gets about 13 percent of its energy mix from renewables. Cooper said the utility faces "a real challenge," but expects to meet the 20 percent target.

    About half of the states have similar targets, and they would be easier to meet if Congress adopted a nationwide renewable standard like the one that almost succeeded in the Senate, said Marilyn Brown, a Georgia Tech scientist and member of the National Commission on Energy Policy. A national standard, along with more federal investment, would spur the technological developments that would make wind, solar and biomass more affordable, she said at a recent briefing on Capitol Hill.

    The one measure most likely to pass Congress this year is some increase in fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, despite opposition from the auto industry. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and many House Democrats will push for the 35 mpg standard adopted by the Senate, and there's a chance they could take it up before the August recess.

    The key player in the House is its senior member, John Dingell, a Michigan Democrat and energy committee chairman who has clashed with Pelosi. First elected in 1955, Dingell has been protective of the auto industry, but he is also a canny legislator who helped enact the Clean Air Act in 1990.

    Dingell has told auto manufacturers to prepare for some mandated increase in fuel efficiency. But he is also putting together his own bill for this fall. It will be "a comprehensive, mandatory, economy-wide program to reduce emissions" and, he said, "every industry will have to tithe."

    In a recent speech, Dingell warned of two forces that may delay serious climate change legislation this year: businesses that say they support mandatory controls "but are really hoping Congress will get distracted and do nothing," and environmentalists who may want to wait for a new administration to get a stronger bill.

    Passage of a meaningful bill is possible by next year, Dingell said, but he conceded that it's "the most singularly difficult task I've confronted in all my years in Congress."

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