“Taxing Delaware will not change the climate.”
“Cap & Trade kills jobs and freedom.”
Those were just two of the signs being held high by a group of demonstrators outside of Legislative Hall in Dover this week, as Delaware got a taste of the national debate over energy policy.
State Representative Harold Peterman (R-Milford) is the sponsor of House Bill 86, which seeks to end Delaware’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a collaboration of ten states formed in 2007 with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The House Energy Committee is slated to take up the bill Wednesday.
“Delaware electricity is more expensive here than in any other state, eroding the purchasing power of our working families” Peterman said Tuesday on the steps of Legislative Hall. “I want to reverse the upward spiral in the cost of electricity by reducing cap and trade.”
Peterman’s bill would allow Delaware to leave the cooperative. He maintains it is little more than a “cap and trade” arrangement, and that it has goals of reducing emissions that were already well on their way to being met. Peterman cites studies from the Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI), a conservative leaning Dover-based non-profit organization that examines state spending. The CRI says its findings indicate that the RGGI could add $15-to-30-million to the collective annual cost of providing power in Delaware.
“It’s a hidden tax, is what it is,” Peterman said. “Business is being hit all of the time. We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars.” He said power companies are required to buy permits at quarterly auctions in order to emit carbon dioxide, with costs being passed along to residential and business customers.
State Senator Harris McDowell (D-Wilmington) takes issue with the numbers presented by Peterman and the Caesar Rodney Institute. McDowell is co-chair of the Delaware Sustainable Energy Utility, a non-profit partnership created to “develop a sustainable energy future” for Delaware. He says SEU Energize Delaware programs have actually created hundreds of jobs and have collectively saved 29-million kilowatt hours of electricity, $5-million in energy bills, and 26-thousand tons of greenhouse gas emissions from being released into the air.
Proposed legislation aims to take Delaware out of 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
State Representative Harold Peterman (R-Milford), bill sponsor, discusses his legislation to repeal Delaware’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
State Senator Harris McDowell (D-Wilmington North) argues Delaware’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative has been beneficial.
The Sustainable Energy Utility receives payments under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and awards bonds to programs related to renewable energy. CRI Center for Energy Competitiveness Director David Stevenson said the SEU is “awash in funds but not results.”
Not so, says McDowell.
“We have been making sure the money is used effectively and to good purpose,” McDowell says, adding that the benefits grow over the years, “reducing our dependence on oil, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, giving us a cleaner atmosphere, and in the long run saving us a lot of money.”
McDowell notes that the legislature passed Delaware’s Sustainable Energy Utility and participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative with broad, bipartisan support. Peterman, meanwhile, says there is support on both sides of the aisle for getting Delaware out of the RGGI.
State House Minority Leader Greg Lavelle (R-Sharpley) said he voted in favor of Delaware joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, but believes it is time to repeal it. “ Maybe what we need to do is, instead of have a new initiative, pull a program off the table, acknowledge it has served its usefulness, and get rid of a program instead of add a program,” Lavelle said.
According to Peterman, goals set under RGGI have been reached, and in fact exceeded. Through a conversion from coal to natural gas and reduced power output, emissions have been reduced by 40%. The goal under the initiative was to reduce emissions by 10% by 2019.
The savings came at a cost, according to Peterman: 1,200 power plant jobs.
The CRI also maintains repealing RGGI in Delaware would more than double the impact of Governor Markell’s proposal to cut the tax on utilities by 0.75%.
Opponents of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative say the Sustainable Energy Utility would not have to shut down if RGGI ended in Delaware. The SEU gets revenue from several other streams, including stimulus funding, fees to handle Renewable Energy Credits, and issuance of state-authorized bonds.
