10 Senators to Watch as Electric Utilities Up the Ante

As the Senate prepares to take up climate change legislation, members are hearing from the electric utilities industry, which may have more at stake in this bill than any other sector.

The Edison Electric Institute, representing investor-owned utilities, has been vocal throughout the process, calling for even more free emissions permits than the House gave away in its American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) bill.

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry front group with a budget topping $20 million and ties to the phony letters scandal, is launching a campaign over Congress's August recess to push farm- and industrial-state senators to make the climate bill friendlier to coal.

This week, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), whose members represent more than 90% of the electricity generated and delivered in the United States, also weighed in with its own proposal for an all-of-the-above approach to energy, which it promises would cut emissions, too — with 50 new nuclear plants and plenty of coal.

“There is no silver bullet” for keeping up with electricity demand while cutting emissions, EPRI CEO Steve Specker said. “We need everything.”

He listed efficiency and renewable energy in that all-of-the-above approach, but EPRI’s emphasis — and the emphasis of most of the electric utility sector — is still on coal, including one area where EPRI stands to gain from the ACES bill: carbon capture and storage.

A measure that was slipped into the ACES bill amid House negotiations with Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), the No. 3 House recipient of electric utilities campaign cash over the past 20 years, would put EPRI in charge of a new Carbon Storage Research Corporation. It would be responsible for collecting and spending $1 billion in ratepayers’ money each year for 10 years “to accelerate the commercial availability of carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies and methods." Five percent of that money, $50 million, is authorized for “administrative expenses” that the EPRI affiliate could spend as it chooses.

"The target we have set at EPRI is to be able to do [carbon capture] on a large scale by 2020 so that a new coal plant beginning operation in 2020 could capture and sequester 90 percent of its emissions,” Specker said. 

“Frankly, we are probably behind on a time line that can get us there by 2020. We think its still doable, but we have to really get on with our job."

In the interim, EPRI stresses a need for more “advanced” coal-fired operations. Its proposal for renewable energy? Not much more than the Energy Information Agency forecasts will develop anyway.

The electric utility industry has been one of Congress' top campaign contributers for years. Already in the still young 2009-2010 election cycle, it has contributed $2.4 million to congressional campaigns. During the 2007-2008 election cycle, when the Senate rejected the Lieberman-Warner climate bill, the industry gave $20.6 million.

As the Senate debate ramps up, here’s a list to watch of the top 10 Senate recipients of electric utility contributions so far this cycle, along with the campaign cash they have received this cycle from the industry: