November 25, 2009 in City

Avista pushes climate bill

Business group lobbies for cap-and-trade

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Water spills over Avista’s Cabinet Gorge Dam on the Clark Fork River in northwest Montana.
(Full-size photo)

Avista Corp., which gets half its energy from hydropower dams, has joined other clean-energy providers, retailer Gap Inc. and Colorado resort operator Aspen Skiing Co. to form a new lobbying group for federal climate-change legislation.

Avista is one of the 20 founding members of American Businesses for Clean Energy, which started up earlier this month. The group’s goal is to unite diverse business interests to support cap-and-trade legislation, which would limit carbon emissions and other greenhouse gases.

“We’re unified by a need to put a price on carbon. … The reason this work needs to be done is that the planet is in peril,” said Ralph Izzo, chief executive of the Public Service Enterprise Group, a New Jersey utility that is part of the effort. “The economy can’t afford not to do this.”

American Businesses for Clean Energy formed at the suggestion of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that urged companies that don’t support the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s adversarial position on climate legislation to step up and be vocal. Several well-known companies, including Apple Inc., recently left the chamber over its stance on climate legislation. The U.S. Chamber says a House climate change bill would drive up energy costs and put American industries at an economic disadvantage.

Avista hasn’t been a U.S. Chamber member for nearly 20 years.

The Spokane-based utility is active on climate change issues, said Tom Paine, Avista’s director of government relations.

As a utility with a small carbon footprint, Avista could benefit from climate-change legislation, Paine said. The utility already sells credits from a wood-burning biomass plant in Kettle Falls, Wash., on the Chicago Climate Exchange.

At the same time, Avista and similar utilities don’t want to be penalized by upcoming legislation for starting out with low carbon emissions, Paine said.

A cap-and-trade system would give carbon “credits” to polluters but requires them to buy or trade for credits when they exceed their carbon emission limits.

“We didn’t want all those (credits) going to big emitters,” Paine said. If that occurred, Avista customers could see a spike in energy prices, he said. “During the summer, when our hydro production is low, we would have to buy additional (credits) from these big polluters.”

Avista is a member of two other lobbying groups – the Clean Energy Group and Edison Electric Institute – that advocate splitting the credits equally between big emitters and utilities with low carbon footprints.

Paine said it’s unlikely that cap-and-trade legislation will pass this year, but it’s possible in 2010. Avista would prefer national climate legislation to a patchwork of laws adopted by states or regulations enacted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, he said.

Stalling action on climate-change legislation puts the U.S. behind other countries, which already invest heavily in low-emissions technology, said Izzo, the New Jersey utility’s executive.

“The entire supply chain for renewable energy is developing overseas while we sit and wait,” he said. “Our conversations about new nuclear plants are taking place with people from China, not the U.S. … Our offshore wind efforts involve stuff taking place in the North Sea.”

Action on climate change is important to other industries as well, members of American Businesses for Clean Energy said during a conference call earlier this month.

Gap Inc. buys cotton from many countries. Global warming could disrupt water supplies for irrigation and limit sources of raw materials, said Kindley Walsh Lawlor, Gap’s senior director of global responsibility.

The outdoors industry is also concerned. Frost-free days are becoming fewer at Aspen, and warmer nights make it difficult to manufacture snow at one of the nation’s premier ski resorts, said Auden Schendler, the resort’s executive director for sustainability. Winter sports are a $2 billion industry in Colorado and a big economic driver in many other parts of the West, he said.

“If you knock March off of the ski season, the whole ski industry goes out of business,” Schendler said. “We’re a fragile industry.”

10 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  ideasfromidaho on November 25 at 9:31 a.m.

  Too bad Avista has bought into this tax and trade smoke screen. Like everything that has happened since Avista bought WWP it will end up costing us more money. It’s all about money and control just like all Government programs.

• 

  shanusmaximus on November 25 at 10:59 a.m.

  Well Gee! Avista is for cap and trade. Yeah….it is because they care about the earth and environment. Give me a break!! Anybody who buys this clap trap is astoundingly dumb. How stupid of you all to trust these politicians and corporate B.S. artists. Hey! If anybody wants to buy a bridge, I have one for sale!
  Have you seen this?? Probably not since the Jokesman Review doesn’t like to report on any real news……

  http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/hadley_hacked#63657

  It seems that the “science” behind Global Warming has been manipulated for quite some time. E-mails were hacked from one the biggest G.W. alarmist groups around and they are pretty damning. Collusion, conspiracy and junk science. This is HUGE news and a huge blow to science and the scientific method. But alas…..you have to get it in the comment section because this paper seems to be only useful for poultry bedding.

• 

  Snardius on November 25 at 11:09 a.m.

  What’s not in this story is the fact that after the passage of Cap and Tax energy prices for everyone, according to our president, “would necessarily skyrocket.”

  Avista’s attempt to be on the profitable side of this economically devastating legislation is a clumsy attempt at playing politics with our energy future. Global Warming is a hoax.

• 

  wyoboy on November 25 at 11:37 a.m.

  Most of the electric power generation will continue to come from coal for the long term.

  Carbon Dioxide (CO2) the result of burning fossil fuels is a small greenhouse gas compared to methane gas release from sources that can never be controlled. Decomposing plant material generates methane so do cows.

  Of course Avista would jump on the green band wagon. They have no coal fired power plants.

  Where Avista needs to focus for new power generation is natural gas fired generation. Unfortuneatly they sold their gas wells some time back so they are stuck with purchasing gas and riding the up and down gas prices.

  Avista should be involved in expansion of existing gas storage projects and developing new storage projects.

  Wind energy generation will always be a bit player and now there seems to be some push back by surface owners and county planners.

  Forget solar it is too expensive and will not work in cloudy Washington.

  The entire climate change thing is silly. What ever is done will not change the warming or cooling effect one bit. It will just increase your utility rates. From a geologic perspective, this old earth is self regulated and has gone through a number of warming and cooling periods over millions of years, Climate experts seem to just see the short end of a long rope.

• 

  Dan_at_Avista on November 25 at 12:00 p.m.

  I think it’s fair to debate the merits of climate change, global warming and such because reasonable people disagree about the science and that isn’t likely to end any time soon. But I think the big takeaway from Avista’s involvement in this issue is to ensure that whatever happens that our customers are not penalized. Like the story says, we’re a green utility, in large part because of our hydro generation base. If and when climate change legislation passes we want our customers to have the best outcome. There are no defined plans for climate change legislation - they are still being shaped. Being at the table to help share our view about the solution is very valuable.

• 

  Ninch on November 25 at 1:56 p.m.

  Several posts above reveal that the article was not read carefully and/or understood. Cap and trade as it stands now with Obama and the Dems will PENALIZE Avista customers… so if C&T does happen it is prudent for Avista and other low-carbon utilities to organize and lobby for fairness and equity.

  Note: Obama/Dems wants to NATIONALIZE energy production and distribution to “equalize” power rates across the nation, which would mean that the Pacific Northwest would be subsidizing the Northeast Atlantic states.

  Bottom line…. In this context, Avista watching out for its interests is also watching out for its customer interests.

• 

  shanusmaximus on November 25 at 2:03 p.m.

  @Dans

  “But I think the big takeaway from Avista’s involvement in this issue is to ensure that whatever happens that our customers are not penalized.”

  I don’t buy that for one second. Those board members don’t care if we get penalized. Who else can we turn to? This is a monopoly, you can do whatever the hell you want and triangulate any excuse you want. The only people the board members care about are their stock holders and those at the Chicago Climate Exchange (which Goldman Sachs owns 9% of). And let’s not forget A-fistas little screw job back in the early 2000’s……

  http://www.smartmoney.com/investing/stocks/the-enron-youve-never-heard-of-16037/

  No disrespect to you Dan or any of the other workers at Avista, but I would have more trust in Satan caring for my ailing grandmother than I would trust anything your corporate board says.

• 

  shanusmaximus on November 25 at 2:07 p.m.

  @Ninch

  “Bottom line…. In this context, Avista watching out for its interests is also watching out for its customer interests.”

  They SAY they want to watch out for our interests. Saying and DOING are two seperate things. Because you can SAY whatever you want and it is not legally binding.

• 

  ARMageddon on November 25 at 2:51 p.m.

  Avista is not on any level concerned about the impact to their “customers”, (I believe a more appropriate word would be-hostages.), they are only obsessed with their bottom line.

  Caps and credits? A thin veil to disguise a trading of power that we pay for. It is a fallacy and is reminscent of the Emperor’s new clothes. So much effort for, what? Nothing any of the customers will ever see. And all these other concerned industries? Bullocks, they will all feel the benefits in their pockets when this is passed.

  What will we feel? Bruised and hurt from outrageous rates that we can do nothing about. Anger, perhaps, at the beautiful building that the Avista employees call an office. The one that we cannot go into to discuss our bill. WE CANNOT TALK TO SOMEONE FACE TO FACE ABOUT OUR BILLS! Does that even make sense? We can feel good about the fact the CEO of Avista will spend either his huge wage or his millions in hire on bonus,(who is he Adam Morrison, Brett Favre?), on a million Christmas lights this year and cuddle with his family in front of a raging gas fireplace. Er, clean burning fuel, that is.

  I

• 

  shanusmaximus on November 25 at 4:05 p.m.

  ^
  You win +5 Innanet points….spend them wisely!