It seems like climate change legislation is coming—and quickly.
Recently, President Obama will meet with a bipartisan group of Senators and administration officials—including Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC)—to draft a climate change bill that could have a chance of passing the Senate. There are many advocates pushing for the passage of energy legislation who seem to have little regard to the cost to American jobs and wallets.
In fact, some of these advocates are pushing new energy proposals that are even more detrimental to the economy than previous proposals in the House and Senate. One of these even contains a drastic renewable energy standard with a very steep compliance cost on energy producers who can't hit the ambitious targets. Such proposals would raise electricity bills for all Americans, and especially of those in states without access to limited renewable resources and as a result, cost jobs. With the economy still floundering, we simply cannot afford such legislation.
It's clear that our country needs to adopt energy legislation to ensure continued access to clean, affordable and domestic energy sources. But is even more evident that we will need to continue working with policy makers to ensure consumers are not left out of the equation in our efforts to transition to a new energy economy. We'll keep an eye on the news from today's meeting and inform you, the consumer, of how it will affect you in both the immediate and long term.