Emissions rule would hit state hard

Energy focus has been on coal, not renewable sources

Wisconsin is among 10 states that must make the biggest cuts in greenhouse gases to meet the Obama administration’s new requirements forcing utilities to make sharp reductions of carbon dioxide emissions.

The regulations, announced Aug. 4, generated immediate pushback from some states — including Wisconsin — many of which would bear the brunt of reductions as part of the administration’s efforts to combat global warming.

In court documents filed by 15 states last week, Ellen Nowak, Wisconsin’s top utility regulator, said customers would be saddled with higher bills and a less reliable electric system, forcing “every single current and future consumer of electric power” to use less energy.

But the job ahead for Wisconsin could have been easier if policy-makers had moved more aggressively to wean the state from its dependence

on coal and had done more to embrace renewable energy.

President Barack Obama’s long-awaited climate initiative calls for the firstever mandates for the nation’s utility industry to cut carbon emissions. Using authority under the federal Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency will require utilities to ratchet down emissions by 32% by 2030.

The reductions won’t be uniform, because individual states rely on different mixes of coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, water, wind and the sun to provide power.

Wisconsin has traditionally relied heavily on coal, with utilities transporting long caravans of trains from Wyoming and Appalachian states to stoke their plants.

Wisconsin will have to reduce its emissions by 34% from 2012 to 2030. In a stateby-state comparison by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the cut would be the sixth-highest in the country.

The EPA also gives states the option of cutting carbon emissions using a different formula based on how much total electricity is generated.

If Wisconsin complies this way, it will have to make cuts of 41% by 2030 — the eighth-highest in the country.

Other states that will have to cut the most are Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota.

Broader context

Obama’s climate proposal should also be viewed in a broader context, said Keith Reopelle, senior policy director at Clean Wisconsin.

By cutting greenhouse gases, utilities will be reducing other air pollutants that produce soot and smog that are responsible for a range of respiratory illnesses.

The action by the U.S. government also is critical in pushing other countries to act and could help lead to a global climate pact yet this year, said Reopelle.

“This move on the part of the United States is critical to getting other nations like China and India to move forward,” Reopelle said. “We really have to understand what it’s going to cost society, and especially our children and future generations, if we don’t do this.”

‘Intrusion by EPA’

Last week, Wisconsin and other states asked the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., to delay the regulations until lawsuits challenging the rule are settled.

Wisconsin officials said Obama’s proposal would rush the Department of Natural Resources and the state Public Service Commission into planning for compliance deadlines that aren’t realistic.

Nowak, chairwoman of the state Public Service Commission, said the regulations represent an “intrusion by the EPA on the traditional authority of Wisconsin to manage energy resources.”

Wisconsin “can’t simply shutter” an old coal plant, Nowak said. For example, the state would need approval from an organization that oversees the reliability of the Midwest’s power grid.

New plants would likely run on natural gas. And with the switch, she predicted, customers would be exposed to price spikes and potential power shortages.

Last year, the DNR and the PSC estimated that an earlier version of the regulations would cost Wisconsin $3.3 billion to $13.4 billion. Gov. Scott Walker, a critic of the Obama plan, has emphasized the higher estimate when he has commented on it.

Reopelle said the state’s estimates are based on unrealistic assumptions, and the EPA’s analysis found that electric bills would drop if states invested heavily in energy efficiency to meet the mandates.

The DNR says Wisconsin has already achieved a 20% reduction in carbon emissions through energy efficiency and renewable power. On Friday, the Union of Concerned Scientists provided an upbeat assessment, saying Wisconsin is one of 18 states it sees as well-positioned to achieve the first round of reductions by 2022 because of measures underway.

State reliant on coal

Still, Wisconsin is facing big cuts in greenhouse gases because as utilities modernized their fleet of power plants, they continued to rely on coal as the primary source of fuel. The attraction: the affordability and reliability of coal.

We Energies’ Oak Creek power plant and a plant in Wausau owned by Green Bay-based Wisconsin Public Service Corp. have opened since 2008. The two plants account for about 13% of the state’s carbon emissions from power plants, according to the EPA.

After approving those plants under the administration of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, regulators in 2008 cited concerns about global warming and denied construction of a third coalfired plant by Alliant Energy Corp. in Cassville on the Mississippi River.

As it embraced coal, Wisconsin has turned a cold shoulder to renewable power.

Wisconsin has met its 10% renewable energy target, but other nearby states have more aggressive renewable energy goals.

The last new wind farm in Wisconsin was built in 2011. For wind power, a key renewable energy source, Wisconsin is trailing all nearby states, ranking 21st nationally. Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota are all in the top 10 nationally, and Michigan has more than twice as much wind power as Wisconsin, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Early in his first term, Walker, a Republican, sided with Realtors and property rights advocates by trying to change siting regulations to slow construction of wind turbines. The bid failed, but during his gubernatorial campaign last year, the governor criticized wind energy as an “expensive, inefficient source of electricity.”

In November, Nowak and another PSC commissioner appointed by Walker sided with two utilities in rates cases that put up impediments for consumers installing solar power panels.

The rate cases involved We Energies and Madison Gas & Electric Co.

Some states have tried taking steps to address global warming, but under Walker, the issue has been largely ignored.

Walker has said little about climate change as governor or as a presidential candidate. When asked about it, he often invokes his experience as a Boy Scout.

“I’m an Eagle Scout,” Walker said this month in Manchester, N.H. “We were taught long ago that your campsite should be cleaner when you leave than when you find it, so I want to balance the sustainable environment with a sustainable economy.”

In April, at a Senate confirmation hearing of Michael Huebsch to be a member of the PSC, Huebsch was asked if Wisconsin’s method of generating electricity contributes to climate change.

Huebsch, a former GOP lawmaker and secretary of the Department of Administration under Walker, said humans play some role. But he said he didn’t believe it is “anywhere near the level of impact of just the natural progression of our planet.”

He added that a single volcano eruption could equal the carbon emissions output of all U.S. automobiles. He later corrected himself after questions were raised about the statement.