Unbeknownst to me, the April issue of 'Rural Montana' had an article opposing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Luckily, Eric Grimsrud read his mailing, and was compelled to write an op-ed in a local paper taking them to task for their stance.
Grimsrud wrote in The Flathead Beacon (April 16, 2010):
According to the April issue of Rural Montana, the leadership of our national and state electric cooperatives is using its political clout to limit the role of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in regulating carbon dioxide emissions. For this purpose they will be including stamped post cards in the May issue of Rural Montana and encouraging its readership to send their message on to our congressional representatives.
Glenn English, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (page 7) set members up for this mailing campaign. His stance is that “the Clean Air Act wasn't intended to deal with carbon dioxide. It was tailored to curb harmful pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which it does effectively.” What hogwash, an incorrect representation of the issue.
The fact is, the EPA is responding to the Supreme Court ruling:
In April 2007...in the case Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497 (2007) that the EPA violated the Clean Air act by not regulating greenhouse gas emissions.
Of COURSE the EPA can regulate these kinds of emissions. I'd like to remind English that under the Clean Air Act, the EPA has done an outstanding job of regulating emissions responsible for acid rain AND gases threatening the ozone layer. And the Agency is stepping up once again to put a brake on greenhouse gas emissions.
The May issue of 'Rural Montana is out online. In it, Montana Electric Cooperative found another spokesperson, Jason Priest, director of the Montana Growth Network, “an organization dedicated to making Montana more business friendly.”
And, how is this going to be achieved?
Priest prefers private sector solutions to energy issues rather than regulatory action.
Ah, yes. The private sector and voluntary regulation. How's that working out? That's what led to the largest oil disaster in our nation's history, and the (presumed) deaths of 11 workers. That's what led to the mining disasters last month, and the deaths of dozens of miners. Because regulations are so burdensome for business. If BP would have been required to install an automatic shut-off on the well in the Gulf, at the cost of $500,000 (as is required in Norway), they wouldn't have turned a profit? If mining regulations had been followed in West Virginia, Massey Energy would not have been profitable? I don’t think this “voluntary regulation” meme has legs anymore.
I haven't received my May issue of 'Rural Montana' (with postcard insert) in the mail yet. And, like Grimsrud, I need to see what it looks like in order to develop a response. Grimsrud wrote last month:
As I write this, I don’t know what choices the readership of Rural Montana will be given for input to their congressional representatives on the post cards referred to above. If an appropriate selection of choices is not provided, I recommend that something like the following be written on them before sending: “While input from the leadership of the Electric Cooperatives concerning their predicted costs of addressing climate change merits careful consideration, their additional input concerning the EPA’s role in controlling CO2 emissions should be ignored.”
Rural Electric Cooperatives apparently have had a hand in proposed legislation prohibiting the EPA from regulation of greenhouse gases for quite some time. The EPA has a duty to regulate CO2, and now the fight is on as to whether the Congress will allow it.
Originally posted at Daily Kos May 6, 2010
One of the comments on my post at Daily Kos was very informative:
I work for a co-op, in management to boot.I am a very active participant at the regional and national level in NRECA's annual resolutions process. Although on climate change issues, I measure my success in how much less bad I can convince people to make a policy proposal. (On other matters, consumer-ownership and co-op principles, NRECA and the co-ops are good.)
First, regarding EPA regulation of CO2: It should be understood the EPA's move to regulate CO2 based on the Supreme Court decision that they can, has always been intended as a club, a threat, to see if Congress would instead pass meaningful climate change CO2 reduction legislation. So they continue to move ahead at EPA, because Congress....well, they haven't have they? The co-ops would rather have Congress do it if it has to happen.
There is a spectrum of opinion within the leadership of the co-ops across the country, and the NRECA has to straddle that. NRECA national leadership has actually been working for a few years to move the co-ops more to the middle, to be realistic rather than deniers. Still, they end up representing what their membership decides, and it actually is a democratic process.
Within the co-ops, there are a bunch of managers and elected directors who are out & out deniers... There is a minority of people like me. And there's everyone in the middle who recognizes that as part o the utility industry, the co-ops need to do something.
In most states, the co-ops are not regulated by state government because their consumer-owned & governed. So the respond very negatively to any threat of outside regulation regardless of the issue. It should be noted that despite all this, many co-ops around the country are actively developing renewables-- co-ops in the upper midwest have been putting up wind projects pretty big time.
...
Co-ops nationally are more heavily invested in coal than the industry as a whole although this is definitely not the case across the board. (My co-op is 0% coal.) There are a couple of reasons, one of which is just geography-- a lot of co-ops are where the coal is. The other is public policy--- in the 1970s in response to the first energy crisis and the political desire to say we were lessening our dependence on foreign oil, Congress required that the next generation of generating plants the co-ops needed (which were going to be mostly natural gas) had to be coal instead-- project financing had to be primarily for coal because it was cheap, and American. So no they have literally billions of dollars invested in coal that they can't walk away from, financially. (No investors to take the hit.) So yes, some part of the co-op community are very defensive about their coal.
I work at a co-op where the progressives took over the board in the late 1980s after about ten years of political struggle. I also live in the northeast where the politics of the states and the co-ops members are blue not red. My advice:
Most co-ops with few exceptions really are democratically run. The problem is with who the participants in the democracy are. If you're in a super red area, the co-op will reflect that.
Use the co-op's democratic process. Lobby the board and try to be respectful at the same time. Get people elected, or mount serious campaigns at least. When your co-op uerges it's members to contact your Senator & Congressman, do that, but tell them that you feel differently than the co-op's board-- and let your board know you're doing that.
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