By Rich Heidorn Jr

PHILDELPHIA — U.S. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) knows the kind of dramatic action needed to address climate change won’t happen with Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of the Senate.

But he also doesn’t want to make the mistake that Republicans made when they nearly repealed the Affordable Care Act without having an alternative to replace it, he told the Edison Electric Institute’s 2019 conference June 10.

“I hope that [is] instructive to all of us sitting in this session of Congress: to develop a plan of attack while there isn’t the means to get it done so that when the political climate … is ripe, we’re ready to go. We have no time to waste.”

For now, he says, he chooses to avoid “rhetorical” debates over the Green New Deal and try to make progress on “what lies in the realm of possibility” under the current balance of power.

What’s that?

Tonko, chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and Climate Change, says he sees bicameral, bipartisan support for clean energy research; investments in EV charging infrastructure and grid modernization; workforce development; energy efficiency; and investment tax credits for energy storage.

“I don’t want to get trapped in the rhetoric of Green New Deal, no Green New Deal. l embrace many of the principles of the Green New Deal. But let’s move forward and develop science-based, evidence-based … policies that take us forward.”

Tonko wasn’t the only speaker who saw reason for optimism on climate policy, even at a time when CO₂ levels have reached the highest level in 400,000 years.

Rich Powell, executive director of ClearPath, which supports nuclear power and “small government, free market” policies to nurture clean energy innovation, said he’s seen a change in Washington recently.

“If you watch the rhetoric in D.C. for the past six months, something pretty surprising has happened,” he said, recounting his experience testifying as a Republican witness at two House hearings on climate change.

“There was generally consensus that climate change is real; that global industrial activity from … human sources is a significant contributor to that, and that the federal government ought to take significant, ambitious action beyond what it’s doing now to tackle that challenge. I think there was consensus on that issue. So now I think we’re at a space where we can begin to move from a vigorous discussion of whether there is a problem meriting federal action to a vigorous discussion about the right solutions to that problem.”

“If you really just look at the environmental provisions … [the Green New Deal is] not actually that crazy,” said Aliya Haq, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate and Clean Energy Program. “It’s extremely ambitious. But there’s no prescription. No policy about how we get there. It’s a blank slate for how we achieve these goals.”

Sarah Ladislaw, a senior fellow in the Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the economic justice goals of the GND are also important.

“As we observe technological resource base changes that are taking place in the U.S., there’s actually a fair degree of commonality at the state and local level about what direction we should take,” she said. “It should broadly be lower carbon. It should definitely create jobs and economic opportunity. And it should make communities feel like they have a competitive part in this future.

“The problem, though, is that energy alone can’t sustain economic vitality at the local level. … So, one of the most attractive things about the Green New Deal is … the part of it that’s about trying to secure economic security and a greater degree of equality. … That’s the bigger political moment that we’re living in, and energy [policy] has this tendency to get carried along with those types of political sentiments.”

Bringing Clean Energy to the Developing World

Powell acknowledged setbacks, citing the loss of carbon-free nuclear generation and the expansion of coal-fired generation in the developing world.

“Right now, for a lot of the developing world, the right thing for pure [economic] development is coal. There are hundreds of new coal-fired power plants being built around the world. China has 250 more in its domestic pipeline in addition to the terawatt of … coal — average age 11 years — that are already [operating]. … They’re building at least another 100 GW around the world for their Belt and Road initiative.

“Too often in the past these facts — and they are brutal facts, they’re intimidating facts — have been used to shield against climate action. They’ve been used to saying, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter what we do here in the United States because all the other countries are going to make their own decisions.’ And I refuse to accept that. … Actually, we can do quite a bit about climate change.”

The solution, he said, is innovation that makes clean alternative generation as cheap as coal. “And that can be done, because we’ve done it here in the United States.”

Role for Innovation

Powell called for “technology-inclusive tax credits that cover all innovative, clean or very low-emission energy technologies and that permanently changes the incentive set for utilities … whenever they’re going to be building anything new.”

“I agree with Chairman Tonko that this is clearly a bicameral, bipartisan place where we can make a lot of progress on this issue,” he continued. “And I say that because we made a lot of progress on this issue in the last Congress,” citing passage of the 45Q Carbon Sequestration Tax Credit, the 45J Nuclear Production Tax Credit and other legislation on nuclear and storage innovation.

“So, we think there’s a broad, robust agenda where we can get started … on climate change immediately and use the United States as a test bed for global clean energy technology that can help decarbonize the rest of the world.”

Sacrifices

Dominion Energy CEO Thomas Farrell, who moderated the EEI discussion, said it will be impossible to meet climate goals without nuclear power, citing research that electrification of transportation and other sectors could increase electric demand by 50%.

“To do that with zero-carbon [energy] — unless you can figure out a magic switch, carbon capture or something — you will need more and more and more renewables, which use enormous amounts of land,” he said. “Those of us who are actually doing this for a living are already getting very significant pushback from local jurisdictions saying, ‘I’m not going to change the zoning. … We have enough solar in our town; we don’t want any more solar.’”

NRDC’s Haq offered a cautionary note, citing research that even climate change “alarmists” are resistant to higher taxes on gasoline.

More sobering news came June 11 from Deloitte’s annual resources survey, which reported that while most businesses have increased their initiatives on sustainability, the action by residential consumers has lost momentum.

“Consumer complacency may be settling in as costs outweigh climate as a motivator in adopting new technologies and cleaner energy sources,” said Marlene Motyka, Deloitte’s U.S. and global renewable energy leader. “On the other hand, most businesses don’t perceive a choice between climate and cost. They see green energy choices as a win-win: Doing the ‘right thing’ is good for the environment and the bottom line.”