Senate Starts Climate Talks with Questions about Nuclear, Ag

The Senate launched a week of climate hearings today, starting with a line-up of Cabinet secretaries and questions from the Environment and Public Works Committee that kept returning to the issue of nuclear energy.

Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) both asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu to find ways to increase nuclear power’s use. It might not be cheap, but it creates jobs and produces carbon-free energy, Carper said.

Chu is an outspoken supporter of nuclear energy and has said repeatedly that nuclear must be part of a national climate solution.

“Quite frankly, we want to recapture the lead in utility nuclear power,” he told Alexander, who is calling for 100 new nuclear plants.

The Sierra Club called the committee's focus on nuclear energy troubling, saying it

"ignores the cleaner, cheaper, safer, and faster emissions reductions that could be achieved through energy efficiency and clean energy. And as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) suggested, no state in the union has yet said it would accept the more than 75,000 tons of highly toxic nuclear waste from our existing fleet of reactors. What’s more, reports indicate that 100 new reactors could cost as much as $4 trillion."

The interest in nuclear from Carper and Alexander, as well as potential swing votes such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who called for climate action and a big push into nuclear during his presidential campaign, could boost support for nuclear energy into the Senate’s version of climate legislation. Alexander suggested nuclear be rebranded as a renewable energy that counts toward any federal renewable electricity standard in the future.

Right now, the committee does not have a proposal for an RES, or an even a draft of a climate bill.

Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has indicated that she’ll follow the lead of the House American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill, but that it won’t be an exact replica. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has submitted one energy bill that would create an RES of 15 percent by 2021 while opening the door to more off-shore drilling and use of the tar sands.

A Role for Agriculture

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who joined Chu at the hearing, spoke to another issue that likely will come into play as the Senate hammers out its legislation: the impact of climate legislation on farmers. Just as in the House, several farm-state Democrats in the Senate are on the fence about climate legislation. To support it, their farm constituents would have to be protected.

During the hearing, Vilsack advocated for an offset market that could pay farmers and landowners for using their land in ways that help absorb CO2 rather than release it.

“This issue is too important for agriculture and forestry to sit on the sidelines,” the former Iowa governor said.

Farm-state Congress members have fought cap-and-trade on the grounds that it would increase fuel and fertilizer costs. Offset programs could help cover some of that cost while rewarding farms for installing renewable energy, preserving forests and other CO2-absorbing ground cover, and using low-carbon farming and ranching practices.

Missouri Sen. Kit Bond brought up farming in his summary of GOP complaints, all carried over from the House: Cap-and-trade would be an energy tax that would punish the Midwest and southern states that rely on coal energy, help India and China, and create a bureaucratic nightmare, he said.

What About the Early Adopters?

On the issue of coal-reliant states, Rhode Island’s Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) raised a rebuttal that has been curiously absent: How might a climate bill help the states that were early adopters of renewable energy?

“We absorbed considerable expense in my state going off of coal,” Whitehouse said. “My concern is that we think of a way to be fair.”

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