Washington (Platts)--18Sep2007

A series of position papers on climate change will be published over the
next few weeks as the US House of Representatives prepares to tackle the
contentious issue, according to Representative Rick Boucher of Virginia, the
chairman of the House's Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee.

     "It is our goal to have the entire series of position papers relating to
our agenda on climate change published and made available for comment in about
six weeks," Boucher told the Council of Foreign Relations on Tuesday.

     Boucher then wants to turn his attention to writing the language of the
legislation, which will be economy-wide in scope and not just limited to
stationary sources like coal-fired power plants, he said. 

     Boucher said the cap-and-trade portion of the bill will also be
economy-wide. He said he hopes to draft the bill, have the mark-ups and
subcommittee and full committee reviews by the end of fall 2007. However, he
cautioned that such a timetable may not be achievable.

     "It is less a lack of political will or the ability to structure a bill,
which I think we can achieve with broad support, than it is other pressing
business. That other business is the conferencing of the energy bills between
the House and the Senate," Boucher said.

     Boucher has recommended to the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi,
Democrat-California, that she put off conferencing the House and Senate energy
bills until his committee has had the opportunity to structure a cap-and-trade
measure to bring to the House floor. 

     But he believes Pelosi will go ahead as planned with the conferencing of
the bills; a date for which has yet to be set. He also said he has been
working with Representative Dennis Hastert, Republican-Illinois, to create a
methodology for the cap-and-trade program.

     Boucher envisions a greenhouse gas reduction target of 80% below current
emissions levels by 2050, but he said setting that target will be the most
difficult nugget to negotiate and any schedule has to acknowledge that coal
will play a big role in the long-term US energy future, he said.

     Some "51% of the electricity generated in this country is generated
through coal combustion. Coal is the fuel we have. Alternatives to coal are
not available in sufficient quantities to meet our needs," Boucher said. 

     "If electric utilities are suddenly disabled from continuing to use coal,
their default position is to go to the next least expensive fuel, which
happens to be natural gas," he added.

     Forcing utilities to rely on natural gas is not a good idea, Boucher
said, adding: "We would see a deep adverse American economic effect if
electric utilities are forced to move from coal to natural gas." 

     "Businesses have already started moving rapidly in order to urge Congress
to draft and draft quickly. The sooner these rules are adopted and put into
the law the sooner we are going to see investments made in low [carbon]
emitting technologies," he said.

		--Regina Johnson, regina_johnson@platts.com