Federal efforts to clean up nation’s power grid are gaining momentum
WASHINGTON — More than a decade after Congress took up major climate legislation, the prospect of a federal standard for slashing greenhouse gas emissions from the power industry is gaining ground in the Capitol.
The details of such a policy, not to mention its support within Congress, remain highly uncertain. But discussions have reached the point that high-ranking federal officials and energy executives are openly discussing the concept of requiring power companies to shift to clean energy — with the help of federal funding — through what is called the clean energy standard.
“We’ve been talking about this policy for some time now,” Neil Chatterjee, a commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and former chief of staff to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said at an event this week hosted by ConservAmerica, a conservative environmental group. “It’s interesting that Congress might take legislative action. The devil will be in the details.” Right now, most of the attention is on Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget proposal, which includes almost $200 billion to help power companies transition to 80 percent clean energy by 2030, as well as tax credits for deploying technology such as large-scale batteries.
Republicans are opposed to such a move as too fast a transition, but Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and progressive members of his party are hoping to get it through on a party line vote by convincing centrists like Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia that the risks posed by climate change require swift action.
“You don’t get an opportunity very often to make an impact like this on emission reduction,” said Doug Vine, director of energy analysis at the nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. “We need to get the best deal we can.”
Earlier this month, Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., told reporters that Manchin remains “open to this idea.” But so far Manchin has only expressed skepticism about the Democrats’ plan in public comments. He did not respond
to a request for comment on Smith’s statement.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, members of both parties are in talks about a bipartisan Clean Energy Standard that would decarbonize the grid at a slower pace, said Sam Thernstrom, a former Republican staffer who served in the George W. Bush administration before founding the nonprofit Energy Innovation Reform Project.
He declined to describe the details of those discussions but asked about potential support for a clean energy standard, he said, “There are probably 10 Republican senators who could be involved in the discussion.”
“This is a different world from 10, 15 years ago,” he added. “The industry perspective has changed to the point practically every utility in the country, even those with a lot of fossil in their mix, have made major commitments to decarbonize. They want to get clean. They know their investors and customers demand it. The question is, can we work out a practical way to get there?”
In recent months, utilities and power companies have come out in support
of a federal standard that drives the power grid toward clean energy, even as other industries, such as transportation and industrial plants are allowed to produce greenhouse gas emissions unabated.
“The power sector is about one-third of total carbon emissions, but the reason you might want to start with the power sector is it’s very responsive to penalties and incentives,” said David Brown, senior vice president of federal government affairs at Exelon. “It’s
necessary to decarbonizing other sectors.”
For instance, electrifying cars would do little to reduce emissions if power generators are still spewing greenhouse gases.
Even the oil and gas industry, for which the power sector is a major customer, is coming around on a clean energy standard that would allow for high-efficiency natural gas plants, which Smith and other progressive Democrats have opposed unless the plants use expensive technology to
capture carbon emissions before they are released into the atmosphere.
“Our view is (carbon capture) is great, but we don’t want that to be the only option,” said one oil and gas lobbyist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations within the industry.
A potential model could be legislation introduced earlier this year by Rep. David McKinley, R-W.V., and Rep. Kurt Schrader, D- Ore., which would aim to get the power grid to 80 percent
clean energy by 2050. After a decade of pumping government funding into expanding carbon capture, advanced nuclear reactors and large-scale batteries, a progressively stricter clean power standard would begin in the early 2030s, with the expectation that technology will become economical by then.
That legislation continues to excite interest among those looking for a bipartisan deal that could withstand the shifting of political control in Congress and the White House. But so far, it has gained little traction in the Democrat-controlled House.
“It’s such a long lead time,” Vine said. “It’s unlikely the Democrats would get on board with that.”
So far, Democrats are wedded to their plan to largely decarbonize the grid by 2030. If they can convince Manchin and other centrist Democrats to go along, they could potentially pass the legislation with just Democratic votes under the Senate budget process known as reconciliation.
But political observers are skeptical that Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough would allow the simple-majority process to pass such a radical shift in government policy. If she were to rule against
Democrats, they would have little choice but to try to cut a deal with Republicans to gain the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster and take up the legislation.
“The potential is there,” Thernstrom said. “Let’s see how quickly we can bring reconciliation to a conclusion.”