U.S. Chamber cool to Obama’s ‘clean energy standard' plan

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce signaled Tuesday that it’s likely to oppose President Obama’s call for a “clean energy standard” for electric utilities, alleging the proposal isn’t feasible.

The politically influential group’s stance adds to the hurdles before a major proposal in Obama’s State of the Union speech: meeting 80 percent of the nation’s power needs with low-carbon sources — renewables, nuclear energy, natural gas and coal plants that trap carbon — by 2035.

Karen Harbert, president of the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, didn’t flatly oppose the proposal at a Tuesday briefing laying out the Chamber’s energy policy principles.

But Chamber officials question whether power companies can expand renewable power and nuclear energy enough to meet such a mandate, especially given what the Chamber calls regulatory barriers that stand in the way of U.S. energy projects.

“It doesn’t matter whether we like it, it is a matter of just doing the math and looking at whether it is achievable and the significant transformation that would have to happen,” Harbert told reporters at the Chamber’s Washington offices.

“And then one has to decide whether that is actually do-able from an economic standpoint, from a technical standpoint and from an on-the-ground, being able to build standpoint,” Harbert said, questioning whether capital markets are “ripe for that type of investment.”

The Chamber's skepticism adds to headwinds facing a new "clean" requirement for utilities. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) has been cool to the idea.

Harbert cautioned against putting the “cart ahead of the horse,” and said the focus should be on measures to bring costs down and other steps.

“What we are saying today is, let’s invest in the solutions instead of looking down to 2035 and 2050,” Harbert said.

The group’s energy plan calls for steps to speed up energy project development, such as “streamlining” reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act and removing other “regulatory barriers.”

It also calls for expanded domestic oil-and-gas drilling and better access to federal lands for various energy projects, including renewables projects.

The group also supports a federally created but self-financing Clean Energy Bank to provide loan guarantees and other financial tools for technologies like nuclear plants and renewable power projects. The group's policy principles say such an entity — which has been proposed in various energy bills in recent years — could make such technologies more cost-competitive “while using little or no federal funds.”

Harbert also reiterated the group’s support for blocking the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases.