James Coan
Princeton University
Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program
Steve Hiniker, Executive Director, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin
Sen. Mark Miller, State Senator, Wisconsin State Senate
Jeffery Smoller, President, Multi-State Working Group on Environmental Performance
Bill Libro, Legislative Affairs, Minnesota Power
· Student Presenter: Patrick Murphy, Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Commenting on Patrick Murphy’s proposal of a 20% renewable energy portfolio is not easy for me to do. Even after talking with him, I am still confused as to how it would be set up.
My experiences with policies of this sort have been very different. In the 2005 Energy Act, there was a renewable fuels standard. However, the standard was well on its way to being met one year later, so the government had to do very little. I got the impression that a standard was set, and then the government would try to encourage businesses to reach it. There could be some program to identify those who had done the best toward complying, but the structure would remain relatively simple.
Murphy’s plan is much different. It is based on credits, so in theory, companies that had a significant amount of credits could easily comply and potentially sell credits, and those that had less renewable energy would be penalized. It sets up a market, but unlike a cap-and-trade, the mechanism could probably be called target-and-trade because it tries to increase the amount of renewable energy. Texas has set up a relatively similar credit program, and it is now a leader in wind energy.
Those on the panel who could understand the paper generally liked it. Slocum liked the prospects of reducing the importance of fossil fuels and nuclear, Hiniker wanted there to be a national standard, Sen. Miller discussed the introduction of an RPS in Wisconsin and the ancillary benefits of renewables, Smoller appreciated the introduction of market mechanisms into the process, and Libro, speaking on behalf of himself and not his company, also supported the idea.
But just as Libro apologized for how the panel was relatively boring with “unanimity,” the collective agreement cracked a bit. It did not criticize the policy itself, but how it would interact with the possibility for other major ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax. Slocum wanted a cap-and-trade with a full allowance auction so large businesses would not get a huge benefit, but Libro preferred a carbon tax, especially if the cap-and-trade program was being so altered that it basically became a clunky version of a carbon tax. Libro also was concerned about the interactions of a carbon tax and an RPS, and he said he would rather be on one regime than both, and if he chose one, it would be a carbon tax.
