After two decades of drift and a year of crisis, the Democrats have finally proposed a serious, future-oriented energy policy. The Energy Policy Act of 2002 (Senate bill S1766), introduced by Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, does not come a moment too soon: The lack of a coherent Democratic energy doctrine has played to the benefit of a particularly oil-intent Republican White House. Notably, House Democrats helped George W. Bush and Dick Cheney beat back amendments on auto fuel efficiency and Alaskan oil drilling last summer. Of the two parties' long-term energy strategies, Bill Wicker, communications director for the Senate Energy Committee, remarked at the time: "We agree on far more than we disagree."
Bingaman's new bill doesn't exactly come out swinging, but it provides a welcome starting point for those who wish to reverse the trend of the last 20years. Since the 1980s, massive public subsidies have poured into the fossil-fueland nuclear industries. Renewable energy sources are increasinglycostcompetitive with fossil fuels, create more jobs, and hold out the promise ofreducing the greenhouse effect; but they are supported by only a slow trickle ofpublic funds. Currently, 50 percent of U.S. electricity is generated from coal,while 20 percent is nuclear. On May 17, 2001, Bush and Cheney set forth a planthat would extend this arrangement in perpetuity. (Late in the day, theRepublicans added a few sops to renewable energy and conservation in response topolls showing that these strategies are very popular.)
Bingaman's bill, introduced in December and co-sponsored by Senate majorityleader Tom Daschle, evinces a somewhat more guarded enthusiasm for nuclear powerand coal, though it shares Bush and Cheney's preoccupation with drilling projectsand infrastructure (transmission lines and pipelines). The Democratic proposalcalls for greater vehicle fuel efficiency and for forming a national commissionon climate change. Following criticism from environmentalists, on December 5Bingaman added a requirement that 10 percent of America's electric power begenerated from renewable sources by 2020.
Not all environmentalists are satisfied: Bingaman includes old-linehydroelectric power as a renewable source, although most renewable poweradvocates favor wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass technologies. Even the 10percent goal seems modest when compared with Jimmy Carter's Domestic PolicyReview, initiated in 1978, which set a national goal of 20 percent renewables by2000. But the future seldom arrives overnight, and so Bingaman and other SenateDemocrats start by arguing for upgrading our conventional energy infrastructure,including electricity transmission lines, natural-gas pipelines, and refinerycapacity. Bingaman also advocates exploring new nuclear and "clean-coal"technologies.
Nuclear power is an extraordinarily complex technology for the rather mundanetask of boiling water. It has advantages: Relying on nuclear power can reduce thegreenhouse effect, for one thing. For another, nuclear plants have a reputationfor steady service (despite recent problems at the San Onofre facility inCalifornia). On the darker side, nuclear energy entails massive capitalinvestment, including major government subsidies; there is still no effectivewaste-disposal solution, and the industry plays a potential role in nuclear-weapons proliferation.
That Bingaman talks up clean coal should be no surprise: His home state of NewMexico hosts federal lab research on new coal technology. Clean coal today aimsprimarily to reduce particulate emissions, not greenhouse gases. Technology nowunder study proposes to gasify coal and eliminate carbon, which would then bedisposed of by injection into the earth. But such visions are far from currentrealities--and more feasible and benign new technologies lie closer at hand inthe form of renewables, which are less carbon-intensive in the first place.
Like the Bush-Cheney plan, Bingaman's bill promotes deregulation--a strategythat has already proved disastrous, not least in California. There, deregulatedutilities shifted their assets and transformed themselves into wide-ranging powercompanies, turning their attention to operations around the country and in otherparts of the world. As a result, they failed to see the local crisis until it wasupon them.
If deregulation proceeds, public power must expand apace. After all, public utilities are cheaper and at least as reliable as private ones. In a deregulatedmarket, the government can be the critical guarantor of reserve capacity, abackup supply that a strictly profit-driven system has little incentive to build.Public-utility companies can also provide a competitive benchmark for privateones--all while leading the way toward conservation and renewable sources.
The good news is that California is undertaking just such a program with itsnew state power authority. The bad news is that national Democrats, Bingaman included, haven't had much to say about public energy. But their bill has alreadyimproved once. And in the wake of September 11, it has never been clearer thatenergy is crucial to national security. The time is right for progressives topush for stronger action to end the addiction to fossil fuels.
