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February 2009 Commentary
Climate change legislation
President Obama’s energy team should bring forceful but pragmatic approach
by Glenn English
CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
In the weeks leading up to his inauguration last month, President Barack Obama began introducing his energy team to the nation. His choices were interesting and indicative. From them, we know for certain climate change legislation is coming — and soon.
By choosing Carol Browner, a former aide to Vice President Al Gore, to serve as White House energy coordinator, Obama has made plain his intention to be personally involved in the effort to pass climate change legislation. This effort will not be handed over to either the secretary of energy or the Environmental Protection Agency administrator.
Under President Clinton, Browner was the longest-serving EPA administrator, and she is an experienced hand in environmental policy debates. With close ties to Gore, she enters the position with one mission: enactment of climate change legislation.
At the same time, with her extensive experience in the Washington policy arena, Browner surely understands the importance of “political sustainability” in the process of crafting and implementing legislation. And in this economic climate, the key to a politically sustainable energy policy will be maintaining affordability for electric consumers.
While still president-elect, Obama also named Stephen Chu, a physicist and leading advocate of new technologies to curb carbon dioxide emissions, to serve as secretary of energy.
Traditionally, the energy secretary has been chosen with an eye toward the management of nuclear weapons facilities; Chu’s selection takes the department in a different direction, pushing climate change to the top of the Department of Energy’s agenda.
Chu, who will be the first Nobel Prize winner to be appointed to the Cabinet, currently directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. He has played a key role in moving the lab in the direction of specializing in renewable energy, particularly in the field of new fuels for transportation.
Once the new president’s team is in place, electric cooperatives must reinforce the central messages of the “Our Energy, Our Future” campaign. To build public support for its favored climate change policies, Obama’s team will have to find a way to achieve greenhouse gas emission reductions while ensuring an affordable and reliable supply of energy to meet the needs of a growing economy.
Electric cooperatives should be encouraged that the president has opted to install an energy secretary who understands both the technological challenges and, as a former researcher for Bell Labs, a realistic timeline for new technology, research and development.
In meetings with Obama’s energy transition team before the inauguration, I underscored the need for realistic and least-cost approaches to climate change legislation.
I told the incoming administration that to reduce carbon emissions from the electricity sector over the next five decades will require new and improved technologies. The government must assist in developing technologies that will allow for expanded baseload generation options.
I am hopeful that we will now have an energy secretary who can chart a viable path to get us there. Obama’s energy team is one whose members have long been focused on tackling climate change. This is also a team that has worked within government and industry.
We have good reason to believe that they will move forcefully, but also pragmatically, to carry out the new president’s intention to push climate change legislation.
NRECA is the Arlington, Va.-based trade association for the nation’s consumer-owned electric cooperatives.
Written By: eceditor
Date Posted: 1/30/2009
Number of Views: 501
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