Jun 4 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Tom Fowler Houston Chronicle

Renewable energy may have gained a firm foothold in the mainstream of American politics in recent years, but 2008 won't be the year for the passage of major climate change legislation.

That was the consensus of a panel of political and energy experts at the American Wind Energy Association's annual conference in Houston on Tuesday.

To illustrate their point, panelists pointed to the Senate debate on a bill this week to reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases.

Supporters say it is urgently needed to head off ecological disaster, but opponents say it is not necessarily grounded in facts and would be too costly to the economy.

They also noted that both leading presidential candidates support new laws to cap emissions and lower them over time through a trading system. But there are still too many complex and polarizing issues remaining to make it into law this year.

"A lot of what we see this year is really setting up for the next Congress," said Greg Wetstone, director of public policy for the wind association.

Rather, a few small measures, like the extension of a 2 cent per kilowatt-hour renewable energy tax credit set to expire Jan. 1, are more likely to gain passage, he said.

Climate policy can't be rushed, retired Gen. Wesley Clark said, but making major changes to U.S. energy consumption is an imperative because of its effect on national security.

U.S. dependence on foreign oil is the main reason for our military involvement in the Middle East, he said, and our spending enriches regimes that aren't particularly democratic or interested in creating economic opportunity for broad sections of their societies, Clark said.

"The more we consume, the more we distort economic development in other parts of the world," Clark said.

Bolstering the domestic renewable energy business is a good investment, said John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and current CEO of the Center for American Progress.

"This is the place where job growth will be, where investments can happen," Podesta said.

Coal's significance

But supporting renewables without accepting that fossil fuels will continue to be an important part of the power generation mix in the U.S. for years to come is shortsighted, said Pat Wood, former head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Texas Public Utility Commission.

Wood, who now does consulting on renewable power projects, said he believes by 2100 the U.S. could see most of its power coming from wind, nuclear and solar sources, but natural gas and coal "are going to be bridges to the future," he said.

"Telling coal you don't get a seat at the table isn't going to help," Wood said.

The larger policy battle that is shaping up will take a long time and leaves coal power plant developers in limbo, unwilling to invest in new technologies until they know what the real price of carbon will be.

"Rather than pass a $6.4 trillion campaign to deal with the impact of coal across the entire economy, why not just deal with coal directly?" Wood said, referring to cap-and-trade programs being proposed to cut carbon emissions. "They just want to know what the rules are."

But addressing just the coal issue directly instead of a broader range of issues would be like asking politicians "to put their finger on the red button," said Jeff Goodell, author of the book Big Coal.

"To actually confront what we're going to do about coal is the most politically fraught thing you can do," because of the costs that consumers will end up shouldering.

Doubting statistics

The actual price tag for legislating carbon will be staggering when those costs work their way down to consumer electric bills, Goodell said.

The claim by many that the capture and storage of carbon emissions underground will be a viable way to keep coal around for years also needs closer examination, he said.

So, too, do claims that the U.S. still has more than 250 years worth of coal reserves.

Those reserve figures are many years old, Goodell said, and don't address how difficult and costly both financially and environmentally tapping into those coal reserves will be.

The difficult process of crafting a national climate change policy might be made easier by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency more willing to directly exercise its authority over the coal plant issue than the current administration, Podesta said.

That might be more likely with a Democrat in the White House, he added.

But confirmation hearings on a new EPA administrator would likely be contentious if the agency was going to go in that direction, Wood said.

"It would make the Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings look like kindergarten," he said.

tom.fowler@chron.com