Clean Energy legislation touted at summit
By Alex Rose
MEDIA — A Clean Energy Summit at Delaware County Community College Thursday focused on the global impacts of climate change and the growing debate on shifting America’s dependency on fossil fuels to more renewable energy resources.
State Rep. Bryan Lentz, D-161, of Swarthmore, kicked off the summit by saying the U.S. is at the crossroads of an opportunity to be a leader in the field of clean energy.
If President Barack Obama can point to the Senate’s passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 — which squeaked through the House by a 219-212 vote in June — he will be in a much stronger position during a December trip to Denmark to encourage other countries to follow suit, said Lentz.
But the bill faces strong opposition from energy companies, so Lentz said he was hoping to pre-empt the kind of rampant misinformation that dominated the health care reform debate by holding the summit, essentially making the attendees emissaries of the information disseminated.
“So when the debate begins … we have a citizenry that can’t be fooled, that will know a lie when they hear it with regard to the impact of these policies, and they will be able to contact their elected officials — local, state and federal — and say, ‘We need to pass this legislation and here’s why,’” said Lentz.
The bill would impose a “cap-and-trade” system that puts a ceiling on the amount of carbon energy producers could put into the air. It also includes a carbon credit trading system, though the House version gives away many of those valuable credits rather than auction them off, which could reduce cost offsets originally touted by its supporters.
Opponents additionally project enormous job losses associated with the bill as industrial output decreases and energy costs increase.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated the average household would see an annual $175 increase in energy costs by 2020, though poorer households would be able to reduce annual energy costs by $40 through rebates.
Lentz admitted instituting a system that taps new energy resources will have initial costs associated with it, but preferred to think of those costs as “an investment” that will pay off over the long term.
Among the panelists was Brendan Flynn, representing the nonprofit coalition of veterans and national security organizations known as Operation FREE, who said America needs to reduce its dependence on foreign oil that comes from countries antagonistic to the U.S.
“It is not hyperbole to say that the money that we spend on oil, some of that money goes to terrorist groups,” said Flynn. “Some of that money goes to the very insurgent groups that the men and women of the United States armed forces are fighting right now in Iraq and Afghanistan. That should be reason enough to take action and to reduce our dependence on oil.”
Dr. Bernard Finel, of the American Security Project, also said the effects of climate change could be felt at home. He pointed to a drought currently ravaging Mexico, the worst the country has seen in 60 years.
“Look at the challenges we face, for example, with immigration, with illegal immigration along our southern border,” said Finel. “Think of how much worse it’s going to be if, in Mexico, there’s even more severe droughts.”
While opponents of the Clean Energy and Security Act site costs as a deterrent, PennEnvironment’s energy and clean air advocate Nathan Wilcox said the environmental costs of current energy production, such as pollution from coal mining in the western part of the state, are already much too high.
A new study from the National Academy of Sciences estimated the U.S. spends about $120 billion per year on health costs associated with burning fossil fuels, which is prematurely killing about 20,000 people per year.
That estimate does not even take into account global warming, coal mining or river pollution, according to researchers, merely pollutants such as soot particles emitted by power plants and vehicles.
The summit was not all doom and gloom, however. Several panel members, including Dan Rafter, of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 654, said there are emerging educational and job-creation opportunities available in a “greener” economy.
“At Local Union 654, we spend over $400,000 a year to train our own members,” said Rafter. “Every apprentice is trained in solar power, in photovoltaic energy and renewable energy, before they … finish their apprenticeship program. Every journeyman wire man who has already graduated is also welcomed and actually we’ve been filling up class after class because they know this is the industry that’s going to keep things going.”
