Gore Teleconference Drums Up Support for Clean Energy Bill

Commonly called the Waxman-Markey Bill after its authors, Congressman Henry Waxman of California and Congressman Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the measure provides for a cap and trade system to control greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.

Gore used a new technique, a teleconference system that called the phone numbers of people from all walks of life, not just reporters, who had signed up to be included. Usually, participants dial themselves in to a conference call.

Former Vice President Al Gore (Photo courtesy Repower America)

At the end of the call, Gore asked people to stay on the line to record a brief message to their elected Representatives, urging them to support the Waxman-Markey bill.

On the call, Gore said that by passing the Waxman-Markey bill, Americans will show the world that we are serious about controlling climate change.

As governments prepare for the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen in December that will finalize an agreement to limit greenhouse gases after 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol expires, they are all looking to America for leadership, said Gore.

"America must act today," Gore urged. "The rest of world is waiting for our cue and they will act on our lead. The next generation is depending on us, we cannot let them down."

Speaking in his role as Chairman of the Board of the nonprofit Alliance for Climate Protection and its Repower American campaign, Gore praised participants on the call, saying, "You all have made an unbelievable difference already," by letting legislators know that there is support out in the community for this bill.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce, chaired by Waxman, voted 33-25 in favor of this legislation, Gore reminded participants, giving them credit for letting these legislators know there is public support for the measure.

"One of the undecided members of Congress marked down as being against this bill, told me, I have never been paid more attention to than I have in this debate," Gore said. "That's what you guys, that's what you did."

"And now we have the House as a whole, tonight, tomorrow, the next day, this is the time to get messages to the House of Representatives," he said. "This is the only way we can outweigh the special interests. We can't allow the oil and coal industries to control the debate, the opposition is already out in full force."

Gore said opponents of the bill are continuing to publicize incorrect information about how much this bill would cost the taxpayers, although they know the information is incorrect.

"Last week opponents of the bill were passing around a map that showed how expensive this bill would be," Gore said. "Then it came out that the map was created by the CEO of Peabody Coal."

"We know the truth, it will help our economy, it will create jobs in every single state in the nation," Gore assured participants. "That's why some of America's largest companies have taken a look at their hole cards and realized that this is needed."

"I am asking you tonight to join me to in this final push to get this bill passed," said Gore, who shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for his efforts to publicize the need to curb global warming.

The Spanish Fork Wind Farm in Utah (Photo by Edison Mission Group courtesy NREL)

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released an estimate of the likely impacts of the bill, saying, "H.R. 2454 transforms the structure of energy production and consumption."

The agency projects that the legislation "would substantially accelerate the deployment of clean energy technology that will create new jobs."

The United States would almost double the share of energy from zero or low carbon sources by 2030, as opposed to the business-as-usual approach.

Advanced carbon capture and storage technology would come online by 2015 to 2020 and lead to 25 gigawatts of new and retrofitted CCS coal-fired generation by 2025. Just two GW of carbon capture and storage would occur in the absence of legislation.

Roughly 65 percent of the new power generation built by 2025 will be renewable, and 92 percent will be low carbon. Billions of dollars will be directed to states so that each state can create homegrown clean energy jobs, the EPA said.

The EPA analysis finds that the costs of the bill are low. "The overall impact on the average household, including the benefit of many of the energy efficiency provisions in the legislation, would be 22 to 30 cents per day - $80 to $111 per year."

The Congressional Budget Office recently projected a cost of 48 cents per day for the average household in 2020, or $175 per year. Neither analysis takes into account the benefits of reducing global warming.

By 2020, energy efficiency measures in the bill would cut consumer spending on utility bills roughly seven percent.

The EPA analysis finds that "the economy can grow robustly while cutting pollution," from $13 trillion in 2008 to over $22 trillion in 2030, while deploying clean energy technology and reducing global warming pollution.

Consumption, an economic measure of a household’s purchasing potential, would grow by eight to 10 percent from 2010 to 2015, 15 to 19 percent by 2020, and 23 to 28 percent by 2030.

The legislation would lead to "a balanced and diverse mix of energy generation while creating markets that drive emissions reductions," the EPA said.

Coal would remain a stable source of electricity generation, even as carbon emissions are dramatically reduced and carbon capture and storage technology is deployed.

And the legislation would create a market for domestic offsets of carbon emissions that would be worth at least $4 billion annually through 2030, the EPA concludes.

Teams from the Alliance for Climate Protection will be out in full force in the states to persuade people to contact their elected representatives in support of the bill, Gore said. Referring to the celebration on July 4 of Independence Day, he said, "We are declaring next week Energy Independence Week."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.