Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher (D-9th District) raised eyebrows recently when he voted in favor of the Waxman-Markey “Carbon Tax” bill — among coal-country Congressmen, Boucher’s “aye” stood out like a sore thumb when the vote tally was posted.  The resulting flack included an ad sponsored by American Solutions for Winning the Future (ASWF) in the Roanoke Times asking, “Why did Rick Boucher vote to kill Virginia jobs?” Boucher has now responded with a lengthy letter, which is reproduced below.  First, the back-story.

Liberal Democrats did some “house cleaning” at the beginning of this session of Congress which included the ouster of Boucher, considered a moderate, from chairmanship of a key subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee.  Step one was the ouster of former Committee Chairman John Dingell, considered unreliable on carbon-tax issues owing to his representation of the Michigan automobile-producing area.  Step two was to combine the Energy & Air Quality subcommittee, chaired by Boucher, with the Environment & Hazardous Materials subcommittee to form the new Energy and Environment subcommittee.  In step three, reliably liberal Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) was appointed to be the chairman of the new subcommittee, while Boucher was sopped with an essentially useless position on the DTV transition panel.  See Waxman Cleaning House in Energy Committee.

Boucher is a 14-term Congressman who has learned a great deal about how things are done on Capitol Hill, and Waxman’s the stake-through-the-heart move wasn’t going to keep him down.  When it came time in early May to slide cap-and-tax through the House Committee, Boucher had cemented his alliances and was ready to deal.  See Boucher Pours On Coal In Climate Debate.  When Waxman and Markey counted heads, it looked as if they would come up short by a few moderate Democrats.  See Waxman’s Big Get: Va Rep Boucher.  Waxman was forced to compromise.  See Key Dem Backs Waxman Climate Bill.  Congressman Boucher declared victory and sent out the press releases.  See Boucher: Cap and trade deal preserves coal jobs.

In June, Waxman-Markey ran into more trouble from farm-state Democrats. In both cases — coal-country Democrats and farm-state Democrats — Waxman appears to have cut a deal by handing out carbon credits as if they were party favors.  See Waxman, Peterson Have Climate Deal.

Did the Boucher and Peterson moves actually gut the carbon-tax legislation, as they seem to claim? Seriously — if it won’t cost consumers of electricity more than a postage stamp a day, what is the point? It appears that they have moved some markers around, reducing the near-term impact of the legislation and leaving the real days of reckoning for a time when they will have retired from office.  Meanwhile, once again, they have “brought home the bacon” for the districts — in Boucher’s case, by securing millions for research and experiments on carbon sequestration.

The following is the Boucher letter released yesterday (on Friday, of course, the day you release letters you don’t want folks to read):

Congress of the United States

House of Representatives

Rick Boucher

9th District, Virginia

NINTHNET@mail.house.gov

HTTP://www.house.gov/boucher/

July 10, 2009

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns regarding the American Clean Energy and Security Act, which has been approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.  I appreciate your taking the time to share your views with me.  Contrary to the claims that some have made, passage of the legislation will not increase taxes or cause job losses.  Electricity rates will be kept affordable, and the use of coal, our nation’s most abundant energy resource, will continue to grow.  I am pleased to have this opportunity to explain the process by which these results were achieved.

Passage by the Congress of an economically sustainable program to control greenhouse gases is necessary.  Whether Congress acts or not, it is inevitable that federal controls on greenhouse gases will be adopted.  In March of 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ended the debate by declaring that carbon dioxide (CO2) is a pollutant.  Under that ruling and the terms of the existing Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now required to regulate CO2 emissions unless the Congress intercedes with its own balanced regulatory program.  Given the certainty that greenhouse gases will be regulated, it is far better for Congress to adopt its own regulations than have the EPA adopt regulations which could not fully take into account economic considerations.

Any federal program to control greenhouse gas emissions must keep electricity rates affordable for consumers and enable continued growth in the use of coal.  It is our nation’s most abundant and least expensive energy resource, and approximately 51 percent of our nation’s electricity is produced using coal.  Approximately 80 percent of the electricity in the Ninth Congressional District is coal-generated, and coal production is one of our region’s major industries and key employers.

To address Southwest Virginia’s clear needs as the legislation was being developed, for the past several months I have been negotiating with the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to ensure that electricity rates will be kept affordable for consumers, coal-related jobs will be preserved and continued growth in coal usage will occur.  In the form in which it was approved by the House of Representatives on June 26, the American Clean Energy and Security Act achieves all of those goals.

The claims by the opponents of the bill that it will impose enormous electricity price increases for families are simply wrong.  Similarly, the claims of opponents that the CO2 controls under the bill will force utilities to surrender coal use are also simply wrong.  The legislation does not impose any new taxes.  The estimates which you may have heard about the costs to consumers and businesses under the measure are inaccurate and pertain to a much earlier proposal to curb greenhouse gases.

Here are the facts.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that the entire cost of the program for the typical family will be between $0.22 and $0.30 daily, or less than the cost of a postage stamp each day.  Moreover, an independent analysis of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that 31 percent of the households in my Congressional District will receive an average net benefit of $40 annually because of the consumer protection provisions which have been included in the measure.

The EPA also estimates that coal use in the United States will grow under the bill by 2020.  The legislation broadly accelerates the movement in the United States to all electric cars and trucks.  As transportation electrifies, the demand for electricity increases, and coal, our most abundant fuel, will be the fuel of choice to meet that rising demand.

The agreement I reached with the Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and which is included in the legislation will keep electricity rates affordable for consumers and enable growth in coal production.  While we successfully negotiated dozens of provisions, the major concessions the Committee Chairman made to me are the following:

       Electric utilities will receive 90 percent of the emission allowances they will need without charge. The provision of free allowances will help keep electricity rates affordable and ensure that coal remains the fuel of choice for electricity generation.

       Our agreement provides 2 billion tons annually of offsets that will enable electric utilities to invest in agriculture and forestry, including tropical rain forest preservation, as a means of meeting their emission reduction requirements under the law.  Therefore, by using offsets, electric utilities can continue using coal while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

       Under our agreement, separate legislation I have introduced to accelerate the flow of federal funding for the latest generation of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies will be enacted into law. Under that measure, $1 billion annually will be devoted to the development of these technologies for a ten year period, and estimates are that with $20 billion in funding they will be available and reliable in 2020. This technology development is essential to preserving coal jobs, allowing increased coal production and keeping electricity rates affordable as greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.

       And our agreement provides more than $100 billion to assist with the deployment by coal-fired power plants of CCS technologies when they are fully developed.  With the deployment of CCS, coal will still be the cheapest fuel available for electricity generation.

       Local natural gas distribution companies will also receive allowances under the program to protect consumers from natural gas price increases.  The states will receive additional allocations to benefit consumers who use home heating oil and propane.  The provision of these allowances will protect consumers who depend on these energy sources for electricity and for home heating.

       Additionally, the legislation provides free allowances for energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries to cover any increased energy costs.  This provision will protect U.S. factories from energy cost increases and ensure that they will continue to be competitive in the global market.

Throughout the course of the negotiations, I have been in continuous discussions with a number of local stakeholders, including the coal industry, electric utilities and Southwest Virginia’s factories to ensure that the measure reflects the principles that are of paramount interest to them.

Finally, by accelerating the time when cars and trucks will be electrically powered and by promoting innovation in clean energy and energy efficient practices, the measure will reduce our reliance on foreign oil and make America far more energy independent.  Both our national security and our economic security will be enhanced.  The standards set by our legislation will give certainty to the energy market, opening the door to a more secure energy future and the creation of millions of new jobs innovating, deploying and exporting to the world the new low CO2 emitting technologies that will power our energy future.

I am now conducting a series of extensive discussions with members of the U.S. Senate stressing to them the importance of retaining the key provisions I have successfully inserted into the House version of the legislation that will ensure growing coal use, affordable electricity for all Americans and preservation of the essential jobs in our factories that are exposed to trade.

I hope you find this information useful, and I would welcome your further comments and suggestions regarding this and other matters of importance to Southwest Virginians.

Thank you again for contacting me.  With kind regards, I remain

Sincerely,

Rick Boucher

Member of Congress