Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Lincoln: More Than One Way To Lower Carbon

By Margaret Kriz Hobson  

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.

In September, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., became chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. Before taking control of the panel, Lincoln had been a vocal critic of climate change legislation. Since she joined the leadership, she's taken a more cautious approach. As a member of three committees with jurisdiction over global warming issues -- Agriculture, Energy and Finance -- Lincoln's agricultural perspective will carry great weight in the climate change debate.

Lincoln talked to National Journal reporter Margaret Kriz Hobson on Oct. 23.

NJ: You're been portrayed as being opposed to climate change legislation. Is that they case?

Lincoln: Well, I'm not ambivalent about the challenges that we face or certainly the goals that we've set. I'm extremely committed to common-sense solutions to meet the priorities of lowering our carbon output and lessening our dependence on foreign oil and seizing the opportunities that are created to create good green jobs all across the country.

We've seen that in Arkansas. We've got a number of facilities that produce windmill blades and windmill turbines. Look at all the ingenuity that's going on with agriculture, whether its new sources of energy like algae or renewable fuels. Look at more-beneficial crops that can be made into renewable fuels, as opposed to some of the more traditional ones we've used in the past, like corn-based ethanol. Now we're looking at cellulosic-based ethanol.

I am as committed to lowering carbon output and lessening dependence on foreign oil and creating jobs as anybody. But I don't believe that there's just one way to get there.

I'm going to work hard with the committee members to make sure that our agriculture community has a seat at the table, making sure that not only will they be players, but more importantly that they are seen as part of the solution and not a part of the problem.

NJ: How do you intend to approach climate change legislation?

Lincoln: I've heard from members of the committee that think we need to look at how agriculture is viewed.... [Farmers] have a wide variety of issues in terms of their input costs [of higher energy prices]. They want to know what that's going do to their productivity or how will they compete globally if other countries are not under those same types of restrictions and input cost increases. The legislation also has a real possibility of having an impact on the cost of food to consumers, both here in this country and globally.

We want to look at how are the possible [free] credits or allowances [distributed under a cap-and-trade program] going to be used by agriculture. How do you determine the [greenhouse gas] outputs from agriculture? There are still a lot of unanswered questions.

NJ: Will you hold a markup on the Kerry-Boxer bill?

Lincoln: We want to have our hearings. We're not planning markups now. I think its way too premature to do any of that.

The Finance Committee is going to consider this [legislation]. There are a lot of different ideas on that committee about how is this going to work in terms of a marketplace. You've got several members of the Finance Committee that think there are other ways to [control greenhouse gases] than just the cap-and-trade type of marketplace. Many of us sitting on Finance or Energy or Agriculture are looking at how that's going to work. We want legislation that really does hit the priorities. But we also know that there are a lot of other things on our plate -- health care reform, financial regulation reform. Derivatives come under our jurisdiction. So will the markets for the carbon credits.

NJ: You're up for re-election in 2010. Are your constituents talking about climate change?

Lincoln: The people of Arkansas are certainly supportive of both lowering our carbon output and looking at the opportunities that exist. The challenge of lowering our carbon output and lessening our dependence on foreign oil -- all of those things present us with great opportunities. One of them is the creation of green jobs, and Arkansans are very much interested in seeing us move in that direction.

But they also want to make sure that we're taking our time and thoroughly looking through what the consequences are as we make decisions. What I hear from people is, yes, we want to move from an old energy economy to a new energy economy. Yes we want to lessen our dependence on foreign oil and look towards renewable fuels. We want to lower our carbon output. We think that's important to the environment as a whole. And yes we want to create these jobs. But we know that that's a big task. We want to make sure that we're doing this correctly.

That's one reason why I have been very supportive of the Senate Energy Committee's bipartisan bill. I think it takes very good steps in the right direction. It's got a renewable electricity standard. It increases our production of renewable energy sources -- wind, solar, biofuels, geothermal. I've tried hard to bring about the importance of other non-carbon emitting opportunities like hydroelectric.

There are a lot of people out there that recognize we're not going to be able to get from where we are to where we want to be in carbon emissions without a strengthened nuclear. The Senate energy bill does that and expands domestic oil and gas production. We create a clean energy bank that facilitates new energy technology....

From what I hear on the campaign trail, people want to see us taking those steps but they do have concerns that if we take too big a steps, there's consequences that will set us back. People are very cognizant of the economy.

NJ: Would you like to see the Senate adopt the energy bill that was passed earlier this year by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee -- rather than wait to include it in a climate change bill?

Lincoln: I think it would be a great first step, yes. And I think that you could couple it with the kinds of tax incentives [for renewable fuels] that we've looked at in the Finance Committee. Some of the incentives need to be extended; others to be expanded to cover newer research that's come out, on [producing energy from] algae or chicken litter.

I have to help produce a bill that recognizes agriculture and forestry and what they bring to the table. That's going to be important.