Sen. Kerry downplays prospect of floor debate this year

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<h1>Sen. Kerry downplays prospect of floor debate this year</h1>
 
 "This story was originally published by <a href="https://grist.org" title="Grist">Grist</a>. Sign up for Grist's <a href="https://go.grist.org/signup/weekly/partner?utm_campaign=republish-content&utm_medium=syndication&utm_source=partner" title="Weekly newsletter">weekly newsletter here</a>."
 
  
<div class="entry">
<a href="http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2009/10/27">E&E News</a> (subs. req’d) reports this morning:
<blockquote>
International attention on the Senate’s progress on the issue is heightened given the major U.N. climate summit to be held this December in Copenhagen, Denmark. Underscoring that point, Reid yesterday took a call from U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“The secretary general emphasized the urgency of trying to have some movement in the Senate” before the Copenhagen meeting, Kerry said. “I think we’re going to deliver some movement because we’re working in the EPW Committee to try to get the Kerry-Boxer bill and the chairman’s mark out.”
Meanwhile, Kerry also downplayed the prospect of floor debate on the climate bill this year, signaling instead that committee action is about as far as he expects the Senate can go before the two-week Copenhagen negotiations begin on Dec. 7.
“Bottom line, we’re going to keep working this as hard as we can,” Kerry said. “We’re going to keep moving forward. I’m confident we’ll have some kind of effort, whether it’s out of committee, or out of all the committees, or the working group or whatever, before we go to Copenhagen. We’re going to try to do as much as we can.”
</blockquote>
Not a big surprise, given how slow the overall legislative process has been moving in EPW and the molasses pace of health care reform.  Indeed, it bears repeating that back in early February, Greenwire reported (see “<a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/27/2009/10/04/2009/02/03/sen-barbara-boxer-global-warming-legislation-principles/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Breaking: Sen. Boxer makes clear U.S. won't pass a climate bill this year">Breaking: Sen. Boxer makes clear U.S. won’t pass a climate bill this year</a>“):
 
<blockquote>
“Copenhagen is December,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) told reporters. “That’s why I said we’ll have a bill out of this committee by then.”
</blockquote>
I’ve blogged many times I don’t think that the White House needs to have a signed climate bill — or even Senate passage — for Copenhagen to be successful in the sense of moving international negotiations forward.
I think it would be useful for Kerry and Graham to have fleshed out their <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/27/2009/10/11/senate-climate-deal-lindsey-graham-john-kerry/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Breakthrough Senate climate partnership: Graham (R-SC) and Kerry (D-MA) join forces and assert they are “convinced that we have found both a framework for climate legislation to pass Congress and the blueprint for a clean-energy future that will revitalize our economy, protect current jobs and create new ones, safeguard our national security and reduce pollution.”">breakthrough Senate climate partnership</a> and their “framework for climate legislation to pass Congress and the blueprint for a clean-energy future that will revitalize our economy, protect current jobs and create new ones, safeguard our national security and reduce pollution.”
On July 7, <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/27/2009/07/07/lamar-alexander-r-tn-calls-nuclear-the-cheap-clean-energy-solution-renews-gop-call-for-100-new-nukes-which-would-cost-some-1-trillion/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Lamar Alexander (R-TN) calls nuclear “the cheap clean energy solution,” renews GOP call for 100 new nukes, which would cost some $1 trillion">Lamar Alexander (R-TN) called nuclear “the cheap clean energy solution,” renews GOP call for 100 new nukes, which would cost some $1 trillion.</a>
Since then, new nukes have gotten even more expensive — <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/27/2009/07/15/nuclear-power-plant-cost-bombshell-ontario/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Nuclear Bombshell: $26 Billion cost — $10,800 per kilowatt! — killed Ontario nuclear bid">Nuclear Bombshell: $26 Billion cost — $10,800 per kilowatt! — killed Ontario nuclear bid.</a> And more frought with legal danger — see <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/27/2009/09/01/areva-finland-nuclear-power-cost-overrun/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to The Nukes of (legal) Hazard, Episode 5: Areva threatens work stoppage at Finnish nuke">The Nukes of (legal) Hazard, Episode 5: Areva threatens work stoppage at Finnish nuke.</a>
But Lamar is still rerunning the same story.  Here is what “GOP Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said during a conference call” yesterday:
<blockquote>
Alexander urged Democrats to move on what he said was a lower cost alternative that promotes the expansion of nuclear power, offshore oil and gas drilling, carbon capture and storage, and the electrification of the nation’s transportation fleet.“If my house was about to burn down, I wouldn’t buy the most expensive insurance,” Alexander said.
</blockquote>
Huh?  Well, I’m glad he acknowledges the imminent climate danger in that final quote.
But in any case the House and Senate bill aggressively pursues CCS and transportation electrification, and the Senate bill will have a nuclear title and drilling title.  But CCS is staggeringly expensive <a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/27/2009/07/22/harvard-stunner-realistic-first-generation-ccs-carbon-capture-storage-costs/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Harvard stunner: “Realistic” first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!">Harvard stunner: “Realistic” first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!</a>
And E&E News itself notes nuclear is too:
<blockquote>
“I think the biggest impediment of aggressive nuclear technology is its cost,” said Ralph Izzo, chairman, president and CEO of the New Jersey-based utility Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. PSEG is waiting for the first new reactors to be licensed and built before making any decision about new nuclear plants, he said. “The cost is not within my comfort level right now,” he said.
A June report by Moody’s Investor Services maintained that the credit agency “is considering taking a more negative view for those issuers seeking to build new nuclear power plants,” as most utilities are not adjusting their balance sheets to commence on such an endeavor and as a reflection of the high risk involved in a possible $6 billion to $8 billion investment.
The report notes federal loan guarantees will “only modestly mitigate increasing business and operating risk profile.”
</blockquote>
Nuclear power is the most expensive climate “insurance” you could possibly buy right now.
Related Posts:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/27/2009/09/01/2009/05/05/nuclear-power-plant-costs-progress-energy/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to What do you get when you buy a nuke? You get a lot of delays and rate increases….">What do you get when you buy a nuke? You get a lot of delays and rate increases….</a></li>
<li><a href="http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/27/2009/09/01/2009/02/04/an-introduction-to-nuclear-power/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to An introduction to nuclear power">An introduction to nuclear power</a></li>
</ul></div>
<script type="text/javascript"> toolTips('.classtoolTips0','A technology that catches carbon dioxide at the point of release, preventing it from escaping into Earth’s atmosphere. CSS systems typically are installed on industrial or energy facilities, like coal-burning power plants, where the greenhouse gas is captured, compressed, and then buried deep underground. '); </script>
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