Recently, Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) met with Mark Crisson, the President & CEO of the American Public Power Association (APPA), along with other heads of associations and companies to discuss issues related to climate change. As a follow-up to the meeting, Crisson sent a letter to Sen. Dorgan in which he expanded on their conversation and laid out some suggestions that APPA would like to see enacted as part of a cap-and-trade bill.
Crisson noted that legislation must provide enough time for utilities to transition to full implementation of the regulations. He added that it is "unrealistic to expect immediate reductions of greenhouse gases without significant impacts on consumers and system reliability." Based on this, APPA recommends maintaining current emission levels for five years with moderate reductions thereafter until 2025, when clean coal technologies are expected to be commercially available.
Crisson also noted that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released an analysis of S. 2191, the Lieberman-Warner bill, and predicted that the bill will increase electricity prices by 44 percent in 2030 and by 26 percent in 2050. He said that consumers must be protected from drastic increases, especially if the legislation will not achieve its carbon dioxide emission reduction goals. Therefore, the bill must contain a "safety valve", which would set a maximum allowance price, to mitigate price volatility.
For a copy of the letter, please contact Morgan Meguire at lpickford@morganmeguire.com