Location/ Time: House floor, Monday evening
Legislative body: House
Issue: proposed Holcomb coal plants
Bill No.: SB 471
Summary/ Action (will be filled out later): Amendment to add Holcomb issue to SB 471 passed; SB 471 passes . Next steps: Final action on SB 471 will be tomorrow.
I was taking notes by hand when the brouhaha started, so I will type the transcript up later. To summarize what happened: um… I think I just saw a bunch of Kansas legislators vote to implement the first carbon tax in the nation.
Keep in mind, I don’t have my hands on a copy of the amendment. I doubt many legislators do, actually – they all seemed clustered around only a few copies, in clumps up near the front of the room.
The scene: We kind of thought the night was over. We were about to pack up to go. There was only one bill or so left – SB 471, on tax credits for expenses incurred in live organ donation, and adoption (done separately, I have to assume). Then Rep. Aurand brought in an amendment that essentially said the following:
There will be a $37 per ton of CO2 excise tax levied on coal plant operators of 350 MW or more who emit over 110% over the state average of carbon dioxide emissions, measured on a per MW hour basis. The proceeds from this excise tax will be offered as a tax credit for those plants who emit less. There is a price per ton of carbon, but bill supporters swore up and down that this was not a carbon tax, because there were carbon mitigation provisions in the amendment that could offset the emissions from dirty plants. They also swore up and down that even though these credits could be traded, this had nothing to do with cap and trade, because there was no cap.
A pause. To collect myself. That was actually more like a dream sequence. I’m still not sure I really heard “$37 per ton of carbon” Take that with a grain of salt, until I somehow track down the amendment.
The amendment passed by 78-42, roughly the same margin as the original vote on Holcomb I, SB 327, which was vetoed by the governor.
Who does this amendment affect? Essentially, KCPL, Westar, BPU, and Sunflower. KCPL and Westar in particular will be affected, because they have older plants that emit more per MWh. Sunflower has newer plants that emit less per MWh – but if the proposed Holcomb plants will be by far the largest total emitters in the state, if they are built.
If this is green, it is green in an incredibly fuzzy math, tortured kind of way. Note, carbon dioxide emissions are not measured by total volume. You can emit as much carbon dioxide as you want, as long as your plants’ per MWh average from your plants is lower than that of another facility.
Let’s be clear – in particular, KCPL, Westar, and BPU RATEPAYERS will be affected, suddenly and drastically, by the legislature, without any cushioning by the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC), Citizen Utility Ratepayers Board, etc. Eastern Kansas ratepayers will be paying for western Kansas electric generation.
Is this punishment for KCPL and Westar for not supporting Sunflower’s bid to build the Holcomb plants? Is it a way for Sunflower to finance the costs of meeting the Governor’s compromise of a 660 MW plant? Could be both. And while there are probably ways to work out the money issue, this seems a punitive way to do it.
The provisions do not appear to provide permission to build the Holcomb plants. However, those could conceivably be amended on in conference committee.
I’ll type up my notes on the transcript of the debate tomorrow.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Multimedia: More Photos from Clean Energy Day
March 31, 2008
Thanks to George Jerkovich of Salina, CEP now can share even more wonderful images of Clean Energy Day at the Capitol. His pictures do an especially nice job of getting across the beauty of the (ongoing) Capitol renovation.
The new pictures are posted in our Flickr account, but I have also shared a sampling below.
Clean Energy Day participants pack a hearing on the bill known as HB 2949. Titled the Kansas Energy Plan, it proposed to lay out a plan for Kansas’ energy needs by focusing on baseload needs – encouraging coal and nuclear, phasing out natural gas, and defining wind energy in statute as intermittent generation. Businesses, utilities, and environmental groups all testified for the need for more flexiblity in Kansas energy policy. HB 2949 was later reformulated into a non-binding resolution, HCR 5038, which is still awaiting passage in the House.
Representative Tom Hawk, member of the House Committee on Energy and Utilities, meets with constituents at the Clean Energy Day lunch. Fifteen legislators attended.
Beautiful shot of the Capitol Rotunda.
I have a lot of memories of Clean Energy Day, but one in particular stands out – and it might not be the one most folks would think.
Since I’m around the Capitol a fair amount, I have come to know some of the staff members who work for legislators involved in climate and energy issues. After lunch and before the House Select Committee on Energy and Environment hearing – about 75 Clean Energy Day participants showed up there alone – a wonderful woman I know stopped me and asked a question.
“Have you heard about all the protestors?” she asked, and then named someone who had called her to “warn” her.
I tried to figure out what she meant. Then I realized.
“Um,” I said. “I don’t think they are protesters. They’re citizens, and voters, and they are coming to meet with their legislators on topics that really matter to them.”
Then we just kind of looked at each other.
In the past few weeks, I’ve thought a lot about that interaction.
Our country has a long history of constitutionally protecting the people’s rights to protest- primarily the First Amendment’s provisions for freedom of speech, the press, and the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Politically, in the abstract, everyone would agree that these are good things.
Practically, though, making your voice heard has somehow become – if not a bad thing, then at least a suspect activity. The fear of somehow being considered extreme has probably helped shut up a lot of normal everyday people, and kep tthem from fulfilling their obligations as citizens. If you want those rights, though, you also have to accept the obligations. No matter what other people might think.
I would submit this: If you’re having trouble being heard anyway, you really have nothing to lose by being polite, well-reasoned, and moderate. At least start there.
On Clean Energy Day, that’s what a lot of people did.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
Legislative Update: Veto clock on SB 327 (Holcomb I), and keeping an eye peeled for SB 148 (Holcomb II)
March 31, 2008
SB 327, Holcomb I. When you have a question about a veto clock… who better to call than the experts. Ie, the wonderful staff of the Kansas Legislative Hotline, 1-800-432-3924. According to this source, here’s how the process and the timing works:
The Governor vetoes a bill, and sends a message that she has done so. Governor Sebelius vetoed SB 327, the first Holcomb bill, on March 21. This started a 30 day clock ticking (30 calendar days) for the chamber of origin – in this case, the Kansas Senate – to take up an override vote.
Theoretically, this gives the Senate until Sunday, April 20. However, the legislature finishes the regular session this Friday evening, April 4 (or early Saturday morning) and goes on break. The override vote would thus have to happen by this Friday. Legislators do not officially return to Topeka until the veto override session begins on Tuesday, April 29.
The Senate vote then triggers a thirty calendar day clock to start ticking for the House, to hold their own override vote. If that happened on Friday – if the Senate holds the veto vote till the last possible day, to give the House some wiggle room to have the clock tick over the break – then the House’s thirty days would expire on Sunday, May 4.
However, keep in mind – :) I’ve heard several variations on this theme. We are all off by a day or so, which really matters in this sort of thing. We think we know… but we might be surprised.
SB 148, Holcomb II. At this point, this second Holcomb bill does not really have enough substantive differences from SB 327 to make the difference in the needed votes to pass the measure. SB 148 is still “below the line” – meaning it is not yet officially scheduled for a vote on the House calendar (although apparently all it would take is a motion, if someone really wanted to make it an action item for today, for example).
There is some talk of trying to green SB 148 some more, in order to get it passed. However, considering what has counted for green so far, in the minds of the bill’s supporters – I doubt this is a big concern.
Also, no matter how much you add to the bill, the point is that you would have to take some significant things away, to make it even remotely palatable. And that doesn’t seem likely.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
News Update: coal money and climate change
March 31, 2008
Historic climate pact under negotiation. This week, representatives from 163 countries are discussing the first streps necessary to produce an upcoming international climate pact to take effect in 2009 (CSMonitor). Quotable:
“And unlike talks that led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which applied only to developed countries, these talks must set some type of binding greenhouse-gas emissions objectives for developing countries as well.
More players are facing decisions that involve significant changes in long-established patterns of producing and using energy, of economic development, and of delivering economic and technological aid to the developing world.”
As this is going on, scientists have discovered that between 2000 and 2005, greenhouse gas emissions rose four times faster than they had during the previous 10 years.
What sort of emissions reductions are needed to head off catastrophic climate change? If implemented, an emissions objective arrived at an earlier UN conference in Bali would require industrial countries to “reduce emissions from 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.”
That represents a benchmark along the path to stabilizing global emissions so that by century’s end, global average temperature increases will be held to around 3.6 degrees F. Carbon dioxide, the key player in human-triggered warming, remains in the atmosphere for up to 200 years. Stabilization of atmospheric concentrations implies that emissions eventually must fall to virtually zero…
… “There’s a huge gap between what the scientists say is necessary” to hit the 2-degree mark “and what the political process can deliver,” Mr. Diringer says. “The challenge is to narrow that gap,” even if it isn’t slammed shut.
Kansas, coal, and climate change. The KCStar investigates Sunflower Electric’s connection to groups that have spent large sums to deny the existence or risks associated with climate change. They also report that:
… the effort to swing votes has turned into the most expensive lobbying fight in state history. Annual lobbying expenditures have topped $1 million for the first time. More than half of the $1.17 million in lobbying expenses reported to the state in 2007 came from energy companies and utilities.
Expansion opponents, including natural-gas-producing giant Chesapeake Energy, have kicked in more than $400,000. Proponents, led by Sunflower Electric Power Corp., which proposed the expansion, spent an additional $100,000, in addition to an unknown amount for advertisements that weren’t required to be reported to the state. Sunflower and its allies spent $127,000 more in January.
Humans contribute to climate change by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. When burned, these fuels release carbon dioxide long sequestered from the earth’s regular carbon cycle. When carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, it leads to global warming and climate change.
Some costs on nuclear. Although Sunflower Electric’s proposed coal plants at Holcomb have dominated energy news lately, Kansas has seen a nuclear power debate stirring this legislative session as well. During the conversations that have taken place, there has been at least one very large, missing ingredient – how much would a new nuclear power plant cost?
As reported on NPR, Florida Power and Light just got two plants approved – price tag, $24 billion. Progress Energy, with another approved application, estimates $14 billion.
Wind power. WSJournal’s Environmental Capital blog looks at international picture of wind industry. Verdict:
“Wind power is already the fastest-growing source of new electric power in much of the world, the U.S. included, where wind power accounted for one-quarter of new generation capacity installed last year. And that will continue unabated—provided the industry can finally solve the turbine-supply problems that have plagued it for the last few years.”
Problem: Looks like they yanked the image for the article off Wikipedia… and, um, I think those are pretty old turbines. Which if memory serves, have the towers that are contribute to increased bird deaths, in part because of the perching potential. I really don’t think that picture represents contemporary turbine design. Small but important point.
Green, huh? Governor Sebelius and the TCJournal go a round over whether the second Holcomb bill, SB 148, is greener than the first, SB 327. CEP already offered its own opinion on the green/ not green thing. We were pretty underwhelmed.
TCJ started it, last Friday (sorry, I don’t seem to be able to get to the link without a subscription). Essentially, they argued that SB 148 represented concessions by Sunflower.
The larger point – that this is a special interests piece of legislation targeted at one single company out of the entire Kansas energy industry – seemed not to concern the Capitol-Journal. To quote an editorial in the Salina Journal: “This legislation addresses only one specific situation: the Sunflower plant. Drafting bills on a case-by-case basis is not good statecraft.”
This weekend, Governor Sebelius finished the discussion. Her comments – which were fairly crisp:
This most recent bill is not a concession — it’s an attempt to offer the same negative elements that caused me to veto it in the first place.
The “green energy provisions” the editorial writers championed are practically rendered obsolete by what’s in the rest of the bill…
… The so-called “green” provisions don’t reduce the amount of CO2 the two coal plants will emit. They discourage additional wind power by allowing utilities to shut off a consumer’s power if the wind stops blowing. And while they require a utility to develop an energy efficiency plan, they don’t say what kind of energy savings need to be accomplished by the plan. The statute would actually allow an energy efficiency plan that doesn’t decrease energy use. How is this compromise?
Creation care. Grist reports on the young Southern Baptist theologian who pushed for the conservative faith’s recent declaration of creation care principles.
— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org
