By Kathy Larsen on March 3, 2010 7:08 AM

The idea that electric companies wanted certainty about climate change law so they could get on with the business of planning and investing held some sway for the past year or so. But the state of the lawmaking right now appears to have prompted a change.

Now the uncertainty seems livable, at least to some. "We'd all like to have certainty. But bad certainty quick is not a good result," Southern Company chief executive David Ratcliffe told our colleague Cathy Cash yesterday. "I'll deal with the uncertainty rather than accept a bad bill."

Now, Southern is likely to have had that view all along. The company has been famous for exercising formidable lobbying force to affect legislation and regulation, often by delaying it as long as possible.

When Ratcliffe chaired EEI last year, all signs in Washington pointed toward a near-inevitability of a climate bill. Utilities felt they had to stake out a unified position -- traditional companies, coal-heavy companies, nuclear-heavy companies; companies in clean-energy states and those in fossil-fueled markets. They did so, forging what turned out to be a wildly influential agreement about climate legislation.

(These investor-owned utilities vastly outplayed other groups, like rural electric cooperatives, on this score. Co-ops scrambled, and stirred up some big political clout that helped big-time to derail the House approach, but only after the House bill was entirely shaped.)

But the inevitability factor? Gone. Something could happen in Congress this year, but the big wagers must be on "not."

Edison Electric Institute CEOs are meeting today in Washington to determine just what their position is now, when senators are struggling to make a new package from a number of options, including one that might keep a basic cap-and-trade approach to carbon reduction but apply it maybe in a phased-in way -- utilities first, followed by other sectors. Or perhaps different industry sectors would get different approaches.

One of the principles EEI settled on very early for climate change action is that any control program would have to be economy-wide. How much flexibility the companies can bear is on the table for them in today's meeting. Anthony Earley of DTE Energy, who chairs EEI this year, said yesterday that flexibility may be possible.

"If the auto sector is more comfortable with CAFE standards and the oil and gas sector wants some sort of carbon fee, I think those are all things we ought to look at," Earley said. He is looking at finding happy ground where all types can live, including nuclear power developers and others who say that without a price on carbon many investments will be delayed.

As for Senator John Kerry, who is leading the legislative effort, he is talking a lot about how his group is looking at numerous options. But he fended off queries with more than common vehemence: "I'm not going to make any announcements of any kind, detailed or otherwise, about any aspect of any kind of any aspect that might or might not be in the bill." In case you didn't get it the first time.

UPDATE: After EEI executives met today with Kerry, it appears there is enough desire for certainty that they are looking at new options to enable passage of a bill this year. At least in the Senate. The idea of a bill that would treat different industries differently "may well have legs," said Michael Morris of American Electric Power. "It may work fine."

According to Kerry, in an interview after the meeting, "we're talking about a narrower mechanism for pricing carbon," instead of an economy-wide cap-and-trade plan. "There will be some trading, but it's not going to be on the scale that we had before and it's going to be a very regulated process." The utility sector would get a trading program and other sectors like oil would get different approaches. EEI President Tom Kuhn said utilities are open to this kind of hybrid plan, but "we are very, very serious about the fact that we need [free] allocations equal to our emissions ... and we need a very strong price collar." Given the almost desperate situation lawmakers are in to get some kind of climate bill passed, it's a good bet that utilities' needs will carry a lot of weight.