By Arthur E. Foulkes
TERRE HAUTE — Duke Energy officials took an unpopular stance Tuesday at the Terre Haute Rotary Club by defending cap and trade legislation now before Congress.
Duke officials told more than 70 Rotarians the company favors cap and trade legislation over the alternative of allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to draft its own cap and trade rules.
“The EPA is working on a regulatory scheme right now,” said Lew Middleton, a regional communications manager for Duke. EPA rules would be much less flexible and far more expensive than a cap and trade law passed by Congress, he said.
“We will pay the full price and then some” if the EPA writes the cap and trade rules, Middleton said. Duke favors rules written by elected lawmakers, not “unelected bureaucrats,” he said.
Still, Duke’s position was clearly unpopular with the Rotary members who spoke during a question-and-answer period.
“The business community no longer agrees with where Duke is going,” one Rotarian said after Middleton’s talk.
Under cap and trade, the federal government would set a limit on carbon dioxide emissions. Companies wishing to emit CO2 would receive government permits, which could then be sold on the open market.
In May, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels wrote in the Wall Street Journal that cap and trade legislation would “more than double electricity bills in Indiana,” which relies heavily on coal for electric power. Daniels called cap and trade an effort by “wealthy but faltering powers — California, Massachusetts and New York — seeking to exploit politically weaker” states, such as Indiana, “in order to prop up their own decaying economies.”
“We have a different perspective on this legislation” than Gov. Daniels, Middleton said.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill in June by a mostly party-line vote of 219-212. The bill received strong support among New England and West Coast lawmakers. Only two Indiana House members supported the bill while seven others, including Rep. Brad Ellsworth, D-Indiana, voted no.
The bill is now before the U.S. Senate. “We have further opportunity to improve the bill” in the Senate, Middleton told the Rotarians.
Supporting cap and trade has allowed Duke, which serves more than 4 million customers in five states, to help shape the legislation, Middleton noted. He said the company took the lead in changing the original version of the Waxman-Markey bill, supported by President Obama. That version would have caused Hoosier electric bills to increase by about 40 percent, according to a Duke media release issued in February.
One Rotarian asked Duke officials whether cap and trade would have any effect on the global climate.
“There is wonderful science” on both sides, Middleton said. Duke has elected to “set science aside” and deal with inevitable cap and trade legislation, he said. “It’s not only science that’s driving this. It’s politics that’s driving this,” he said.
Duke, the largest electricity producer in Indiana, also has broken ranks with other energy producers in the cap and trade debate. Last week, Duke announced it was leaving the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which has spent millions of dollars advertising against cap and trade legislation.
“Members come and go,” Middleton said when asked about Duke’s decision to leave the Clean Coal coalition. “That happens all the time.”
One Rotarian asked Middleton to comment on a report that said Indiana’s electric bills would double by 2020 under cap and trade. Middleton said it’s impossible to predict future energy costs.
“There’s going to be a price. How much that price will be? Who knows?” he said.
Arthur Foulkes can be reached at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.
