Climate Change: Straight Talk Needed About Costs
07/24/2007
As Congress moves toward passing legislation aimed at confronting climate change, one burning question remains unanswered – how much are you, as the consumer, willing to pay? Indeed, for most Americans, the bottom line is cost. Up to this point, higher energy bills have not been a part of the climate change discussion.
The influential New York Times editorial board frequently addresses proposals to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It stated recently that lawmakers have failed to educate their constituents on “an unpleasant and inescapable truth: any serious effort to fight warming will require everyone to pay more for energy.”
Although many in the electric utility industry seem willing to pass on the added costs of solving climate change problems, electric cooperatives understand the pain higher rates will cause for members. Electric co-ops care – that is the co-op difference.
We are now facing a school of thought that America’s energy is too cheap, and that the way to fight global warming is to encourage conservation and energy efficiency through much higher energy prices. This is not to say that we do not understand the substantial cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The issues simply need to be explained by our political representatives so people are aware of the trade off.
Electric co-ops have long promoted increased federal investment in research and development of technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance energy efficiency. We are actively investing in renewable energy, such as wind, solar and biomass, as well as other promising technologies that could play a role now and in the future.
As the debate on climate change intensifies, we will give it to you straight: there is a price to pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and it will be expensive. But as co-ops, we have a responsibility to protect you, our members.
Already, we have a significant number of member-consumers who struggle to pay their electric bills. The reality facing our industry is that even more members will be unable to afford electric power.
