“No other legislative body in history has managed to trash Earth Day and the legacy of Gaylord Nelson as completely as the Wisconsin Senate has this month.”
This emotional quote from Michael Vickerman, the executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, sums up the sentiments of many disheartened Wisconsinites over the State Senate’s decision to prevent a committee to vote on The Clean Energy Jobs Act. The bill, which was backed by Governor Jim Doyle, would have provided funding for creating eco-friendly jobs and stricter regulations on fossil fuel usage. Along with these important initiatives, the bill would have saved an estimated 1.4 billion dollars on electric bills.
With the promise of such great undertakings, why would the Senate shoot down voting on the legislation?
According to Thomas Content, an energy columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, those who oppose the bill argue that “State policies that could add to energy prices aren’t the answer at a time when jobs are on the line” and that the bill needs a more refined cost-benefit analysis.
With Wisconsin’s current energy expenditures sitting around sixteen-billion dollars annually, the biggest concern critics have with the bill is an immediate increase in spending, regardless of how the state would benefit from the investments in renewable energy in the future.
Opponents are also fearful about the large investments that energy providers, such as WE Energies, would need to put into generating clean energy to meet the more rigorous renewable energy mandate the bill would institute.
While these concerns are legitimate, the ramifications associated with the bill’s death also provide cause for concern. Supporters of the CEJA remain quite disheartened by its death due to its vast potential and what it could mean for Wisconsin.
A recent study by Navigant Consulting concluded that the failure to adopt more diligent clean-energy policies would cost the state a large number of jobs over the next couple years. The bill could potentially create as many as 13,700 new jobs in the renewable energy sector by 2015. According to The Climate Group, the jobs would deal with developing renewable energy components such as wind turbines, solar panels, hybrid power trains, and advanced batteries.
If the bill was signed into law with its proposed carbon tax energy bills, The Public Service Commission predicts that energy bills could decrease by a few billion dollars by the time 2025 rolls around.
Along with instigating an increased output of renewable energy, supporters argue that the bill would put Wisconsin back on par with the other states in the country who have adapted bills similar to The Clean Energy Jobs Act. In 2004, a bill was passed that required 10% of the energy produced in the state to derive from renewable energy sources by 2015. While the legislation was groundbreaking at the time, other states, such as neighboring Minnesota and Illinois have since instigated 25% renewable power mandates by 2015. 10 percent is now one of the lowest mandates of the 31 states that have adopted them. Supporters proclaim that the home state of Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, needs to get itself back to the head of the renewable energy movement.
Governor Doyle emphasized the importance of The Clean Energy Jobs Act back in February when he said: “This is where the world is going. When I watch this sort of thoughtless opposition come along, it is to me completely reminiscent of the automotive industry in the late ’70s and early ’80s saying, ‘We don’t need mileage standards.’ Look where that led them.”
Despite the immediate spending that would be necessary to stimulate the bill, the benefits in the long run would yield a state relying more on renewable energy sources than fossil fuels and produce a variety of jobs necessary to regulate and develop these energy sources.
While the rejection of The Clean Energy Jobs Act is an unfortunate and counterproductive move by the Wisconsin Senate, more legislation is guaranteed to come along in the not-so-distant future because something needs to be done to put us back onto what Content calls, “the path of energy independence.”
