The proposed climate change legislation, intended to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions over the next 40 years, will substantially raise electricity bills. An
analysis recently released by ERCOT, the electric grid operator for most of
Texas, joins other reports from around the country that project significant job
losses and dramatic increases in the cost of electricity if this legislation is
enacted. About 50 percent of all electric generation in America comes from
burning coal and about 20 percent comes from natural gas. And, even though Texas
has more wind generation than any other state (and all but a handful of other
countries), we still burn fossil fuels to generate the vast majority of our
electricity. What is the justification put forward by the bill’s proponents,
including President Barack Obama, for destroying jobs and dramatically
increasing your electric bill? An attempt, based upon computer models with no
guarantee of success, to prevent the Earth’s temperature from rising a couple
degrees by the year 2100. (In fact, one study projects that at best this
proposed legislation reduces the already projected rise in temperatures by only
9/100ths of one degree in 2050.) This is almost the equivalent of eating only
tofu and water for the rest of your life in order to lose a pound or two. It’s
no wonder that the director of the Texas Bureau of Economic Geology called a
recent finding by the Environmental Protection Agency that carbon dioxide is a
pollutant “absurd.” And, while it is certainly hot now, does anyone in
Washington know that back on May 17, in Amarillo, the temperature was 43 degrees
— close to the record low set back in 1945? U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.,
and Ed Markey, D-Mass., have drafted a bill — H.R. 2545, entitled the “American
Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009” — that is intended to reduce CO2
emissions 3 percent below 2005 levels by 2012, and increasing thereafter to
reductions of 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. This bill, recently passed
by the U.S. House of Representatives, was posted for discussion on April 1, but
formally introduced only after six weeks of back room wheeling and dealing and
substantial arm twisting of opposed members. H.R. 2545 has emission reduction
targets that are more aggressive than those found in the Lieberman-Warner bill
(S. 2191) that was briefly debated in the last session of Congress. Many reports
have concluded that Lieberman-Warner would cause massive job losses in many
parts of the country and result in large increases in the price of electricity.
For example, EPA’s analysis of this bill estimated the possibility, under
certain circumstances, of an almost 300 percent increase in electricity rates
and trillions in lost productivity by 2050. EPA also highlighted the fact that
those areas of the country with: 1) long driving distances; 2) large demands for
residential air conditioning; and 3) an electric generation portfolio heavily
reliant upon fossil fuel, would be negatively affected the most. That pretty
much describes Texas — 835 miles from one end of the state to the other, really
hot summers and more than 80 percent of our electricity comes from burning
fossil fuels. We are the state that will suffer the most under this proposed
climate change legislation. An analysis by the National Association of
Manufacturers found that job losses in Texas would be from 250,000 to 330,000 in
2030, and that electricity prices would increase between 100 and 145 percent.
Another report, by the Western Business Roundtable, looked at the economic
destruction likely to be caused by climate change legislation and found that
five Western states would lose more than 600,000 jobs and suffer $220 billion in
economic loss, all in an attempt to produce a future temperature benefit in the
year 2100 of a fraction of one degree Celsius. A third study recently found that
more than 95 percent of the cost of proposed climate change legislation would be
paid for by electric consumers living outside of the Pacific coast and New
England. In other words, those of us living in “fly-over country” will pay
almost the entire costs of climate change legislation. It’s no wonder that the
sponsors of this proposed legislation, who are from California and
Massachusetts, think this is good legislation — their constituents won’t have to
pay for it, but those of us living between the coasts will.ERCOT’s recent report
tells the story. In order to meet the emission reduction goals in the
Waxman-Markey legislation, carbon allowance costs must rise to about $50 per ton
(this is consistent with a recent study done by the MIT Joint Program on the
Science and Policy of Global Change, which projects CO2 prices in 2015 of
between $48 and $67 per ton). This level of allowance costs would result in an
increase in wholesale power costs in 2013 of approximately $10 billion. That
translates into an increase in the average customer’s monthly bill of $27.
During a time of economic recession, increasing the electricity bill of the
average Texan by almost 25 percent per month is foolishness. (There is one note
of good news in the ERCOT study — the 18 gigawatts of wind generation that we
are putting in Texas is already reducing carbon emissions and will decrease the
cost of climate change legislation for our residents from $10 billion to $7
billion.)Texans and others living in Middle America must engage in this debate.
Waxman and Markey have already passed this bill out of the U.S. House. Call
and/or write your senator or representative and tell them how you feel about
this legislation that is likely to destroy jobs and increase your electricity
bills — all in pursuit of speculative results.Our Texas leaders have already
taken steps to use more renewable energy resources, increase our energy
efficiency goals, and clean up the air. We don’t need any help from Washington.
Smitherman is chairman of the Public Utility Commission of Texas.

Please contact Senators-especially those mid country and ask them to oppose this
legislation.
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