Are EPA and I wrong about the Climate Bill?
President Obama says the greenhouse-gas emissions cutting Waxman-Markey bill before Congress will "spark a clean energy transformation."
But according to a page 27 of the new analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency casts doubt on that claim.
...published Tuesday, the legislation, sponsored by Reps. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, and Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, would actually result in slightly less new renewable energy generation capacity by the year 2020 than if the U.S. continued on a business-as-usual path with no emissions caps.
The bill also won't encourage a big switch to renewables, the analysis says...would reduce demand for new generation, including power from the wind, sun and biomass. (Here's how that sounds in untranslated EPA-speak: "Allowances prices are not high enough to drive a significant amount of additional low or zero-carbon energy . . . in the shorter term.")
This isn't quite consistent with White House talking points. On Tuesday, President Obama told reporters that the legislation before the House of Representatives "will create a set of incentives that will spur the development of new sources of energy, including wind, solar, and geothermal power," incentives that "will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy."
The EPA analysis indicates that the reductions will occur to a large degree because the legislation allows companies to meet their obligations by investing in offsets - activities that are supposed to avoid or reduce emissions but which occur in areas not directly regulated - including paying farmers to switch to no-till agriculture, or paying Brazilians to protect rainforests.
The analysis adds that the share nuclear and coal plants outfitted carbon-capture system - would rise "substantially" under the legislation.
But it indicates that total volume of new renewable generation capacity - meaning new solar, wind and geothermal power - would essentially remain flat or decline slightly compared with a business-as-usual scenario...
Read full from From Wall Street Journal