Green groups blast Senate renewables bill
New York, 18 June: Environmental groups have slammed a US Senate bill that would implement a federal renewable electricity standard (RES) because of a weakening of its targets, vowing to push for the reinstatement of stronger mandates as the bill navigates the legislative process.

By a 15-8 vote, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved comprehensive energy legislation, which includes an RES and creates a new entity within the Department of Energy (DOE) to facilitate investment in higher-risk clean energy technologies.

But several provisions were diluted as part of an effort to secure the 12 votes needed to get the bill out of the committee, said Marchant Wentworth, a Washington, DC-based clean energy advocate for the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

Utilities selling more than 4 million megawatt hours of electricity would have to obtain 3% of their power from renewable energy resources or energy efficiency improvements beginning in 2011, rising to 15% in 2021. In contrast, the previous version proposed by Senator Jeff Bingaman, chair of the committee, would have required utilities to produce 20% of their power from renewable resources such as wind and solar by 2021, but allowed them to achieve 5% though energy efficiency initiatives.

However, UCS estimates that, under the new Senate standard, utilities would only have to provide 7.4% to 10.7% of their electricity from renewable energy by 2021.

A contributing factor is an amendment to the bill which could allow utilities to meet the RES by making payments to a compliance fund at a rate of 2.1 cents per kilowatt hour. But environmentalists object to this provision because some of the funds could be used to subsidise nuclear power or coal plants with carbon capture and storage technology rather than support renewable energy technologies.

The Senate bill does not pre-empt state RES requirements, and about half of the 29 US states and the District of Columbia have higher standards than the federal proposal. Current state policies and federal incentives would increase renewable energy to about 10.2% of total US electricity generation by 2021, according to the DOE.

The American Wind Energy Association praised the bill for establishing a federal standard, but pledged to work toward strengthening its requirements. Environmentalists plan to lobby for the higher targets to be reinserted and the compliance fund amendment to be removed as the bill moves toward votes by the full Senate and the House of Representatives – which is to vote on separate energy and climate legislation, which also includes an RES. “That is our fond hope and wish,” Wentworth said.

The legislation also reforms the existing DOE loan guarantee programme, creating a new clean energy investment fund to allow funds to be used to support technology deployment and a new administration within the DOE to administer the programme: the Clean Energy Deployment Administration. The agency would focus on deployment of technologies perceived as too risky by commercial lenders, but does not specify which technologies would qualify.

The Senate bill does not limit the amount that can be spent out of the fund on any particular technology, unlike the House version, which limited funding for a specific technology to 30% of total funding. “That was a setback,” Wentworth said.

The bill also takes several steps to upgrade the US electricity grid, including requiring states to site a high-priority national transmission project within one year of receiving the proposal, but giving the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission jurisdiction over siting when states are unable to site the facility or deny the application.