Oct 9 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Bill Archer Bluefield Daily Telegraph, W.Va.

After an intensive two-year period that included 27 hearings, four white papers and numerous workshops on climate policy, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality released a "discussion draft" on it's proposed climate change legislation.

"We have consulted broadly with effected industries -- including the coal industry and the electric utility industry -- and environmentalists (to develop this legislation)," U.S. Rep. Frederick C. "Rick" Boucher, D-Va., said Wednesday afternoon from his Abingdon office. "Our program is acceptable to the coal industry and to the electric utility. It is structured to allow for economic digestibility. That's our goal -- not to disrupt the economy."

Boucher chairs the House subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. He said that he worked U.S. Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce to craft the discussion draft. Boucher said that he and Dingell intend to gather useful comments from interested parties during the next few months, revise the legislation and introduce it in Congress "early next year." Boucher predicted that the bill will become law in 2009-'10, the next Congress.

"Since January 2007, the debate over climate change has evolved dramatically, beginning with groundbreaking reports released by the International Panel on Climate Change, which affirmatively settled the question of whether human activity is contributing to global warming," Boucher and Dingell wrote in the Oct. 7, memorandum to members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. "In the absence of federal action, some 24 states and several regional organizations have moved toward regulation of greenhouse gases."

Boucher said that the legislation seeks to reduce greenhouse gases by 80 percent by the year 2050 through a "thoughtful policy that will preserve economic growth while protecting our environment." He said that the program establishes a series of "realistically achievable goals" for greenhouse gas reduction, and added that the European Union has based its carbon dioxide "emissions trading system," on the U.S. sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade program.

"The presidential candidates of both political parties support the cap-and-trade program," Boucher said. "I have been in discussions with some of Senator Barack Obama's top aides on the subject of our cap-and-trade program, and if he is successful, which I feel strongly that he will be, I think we will have additional discussions about that program by the middle of November," Boucher said.

Boucher explained that the Energy and Commerce committee plans to "have a new partnership with the new president" and with the Republican leadership in Congress. "We hope the legislation will pass in the next two years," he said. "It may take both years of the new Congress to pass the bill." Boucher said that prior attempts to address climate change failed because of a lack of preparation, but he feels strongly about the new plan because the authors of the legislation have spent two years working on the bill and have included input from interested persons.

"We will need rapid development and deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technology and increased production of electricity from nuclear, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and other sources of power to help meet our projected electricity load growth and permit economic expansion," Boucher and Dingell wrote in their memorandum.

-- Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com

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