The House of Representatives recently passed a federally mandated Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), which if enacted will likely increase electricity rates for all Tennesseans.  This standard will require all electricity providers to obtain a certain percentage of electricity from renewable resources.

SevierCountyNews.com met with Daryl Bassett today to discuss his role as the national spokesman for EmPower Consumers.  This membership organization represents coalition members from all regions of the country whose livelihoods are directly impacted by rising energy costs.  He has recently testified before Congress on various ways that policymakers can address challenges of climate change and energy policy reform, while ensuring that consumers and businesses are not unduly harmed in the process. 

 SCN: Is American energy policy responsible for and at the heart of the economic challenges being faced by America today?

DB: The American energy infrastructure is the largest in the world. Yes, it is at the heart of the debate and will affect the lives of every American.

SCN: We’ve seen progress in Tennessee, especially with Governor Bredesen’s push for solar power and ethanol developments, but why isn’t there sweeping consensus to replace American jobs lost in manufacturing with the development of jobs in new energy?

DB: Because it is so expensive. And because solar and wind power are intermittent and must be backed up by other natural resources like natural gas or coal.

SCN: Do you think the average consumer really understands the difference between short term policy measures and long term policy measures?

DB: No, and a lot of people in Washington don’t understand that either. Most people do not have the time to get into the nuances of every bill that’s before Congress. They depend on their congressional delegation to do that, to inform them in a non-partisan way, what is in their best interests.

SCN: So when President Obama asks Americans to make a short term sacrifice for long term benefit, why don’t we listen?

DB: It’s imperative that Americans understand that there are going to be sacrifices that have to be made as a result of the possible passage of these energy bills (like RES). Sacrifices like higher energy prices. Higher grocery prices. Higher gasoline prices. Clothing prices, as I said, everything you eat, drink, drive, and wear will be affected.

I think most Americans are as patriotic as the next. I think what the American people are saying is that we are not afraid to make sacrifices, we just need to know what these sacrifices are. What is going to be the cost of dismantling the present energy system? We are talking about dismantling an infrastructure that is the most costly in the world and replacing it with a whole new regime, a ‘cap and trade’ regime.

SCN: No industry wants to see a paradigm shift. How do you respond to people who say it is time for utility companies to share the pie, so to speak, with alternative energy resources?

DB: It’s a misnomer that the energy companies are not ready to quote/unquote ‘share the pie.’ That’s not really the issue because ultimately any cost that they have to bear in order to implement these programs will be passed on to consumers. They are not going to be hurt. Their position is, generally, operating costs, and from a standpoint of consumers, they need to understand that as the cost of business rises, the cost to the consumer rises. And ultimately, at the end of the day, it is the low to middle class Americans who will bear the brunt of these proposals.

SCN: Why won’t vouchers work?

DB: Vouchers?

SCN: You testified to Congress that you did not think that vouchers to the low and middle income people for energy rebates would work to offset the predicted rising costs.

DB: (Vouchers) won’t be distributed fairly among the people that need them the most. What’s going to happen, for example, people here in the Southeast are going to be hurt disproportionately. From North Carolina, west to Arkansas, to Louisiana, to Florida, the Southeastern region, will suffer the most with a renewable energy standard and a cap and trade system. Why? Because they are coal dependent. They would logically need more vouchers and there has been no talk of that.

SCN: So it could work.

DB: It could work, if it were more geographically sensitive and socio-economically sensitive.

SCN: I heard one economist say of the coal industry, ‘If West Virginia were leveled to save the rest of America, so be it.’ How would you respond to that?

DB: What was the context of that comment?

SCN: He was speaking about mountaintop removal to obtain coal resources.

DB: I would not favor that. I would not want to destroy the beauty of the Smokies for anything. There are vast amounts of energy resources that we can tap to keep us from tearing down the mountains of West Virginia. Eighty-five percent of our offshore coastal region has billions of barrels of oil, trillions of cubic feet of natural gas. If we want to wean ourselves from dependence on foreign energy, we need to take advantage of those coastal regions. But we are not drilling there right now. Why not?

SCN: I don’t have an answer for that. Here is an agree/disagree question for you. The North American Free Trade Agreement that gave foreigners living on dirt floors so many American jobs would be totally reversed if we allow alternative energy resources to create new jobs. Plus, we get the double whammy of less dependence on foreign energy. Agree or disagree?

DB: Disagree. I don’t agree that you can totally reverse the loss of jobs that will be lost through renewable energy. You are not going to see that. That old notion that you are going to see scads of new jobs through the utilization of renewable energy is a misnomer. The jobs that are going to be created will be created in the solar and wind industry. But as I said, they comprise only one percent of our generated capacity.

SCN: So you don’t think that new jobs in solar and wind technology will ultimately decrease our dependence on China to do all our manufacturing and the Middle East to supply us with oil?

DB: Any job is helpful to that person. What you have here in Tennessee is 10.8 percent unemployment. Huge. So any jobs are helpful. But as Doug Elmendorf in the Congressional Budget Office, non-partisan, said, we are going to see job growth in some areas. But what he wanted to make specifically clear is that simply because we saw jobs created in one sector did not mean that we were not going to see significant job losses under this cap and trade regime. So what I am saying is that you are going to lose a lot to gain a little.

Bassett is scheduled to speak to the Board of Directors for the Association of Tennessee Valley Governments in Gatlinburg on October 23 about the impact an RES would have on the Tennessee Valley Region.