Renewable Energy Initiative Clears Major Senate Hurdle
Feb 27, 2008 by Elizabeth Ziegler
(KCPW News) A voluntary program to get 20 percent of the state's energy from renewable sources by the year 2025 cleared the Senate Friday with a unanimous vote. A similar mandatory program, sponsored by Salt Lake County Senator Scott McCoy, failed to gain Senate approval earlier in the session. McCoy warns that under the voluntary program, Utahns must be vigilant to ensure the state's energy producers are indeed moving forward with renewable energy projects. However, he voted in favor of the voluntary program.
"I do think that, even though it is not the strongest possible bill on this subject, it is one that sets a sentiment and orients our thinking towards a cleaner, greener future, which I think is meaningful and important," McCoy says.
Senator Curtis Bramble says his SB 202, the Energy Resource and Carbon Emission Reduction Initiative, has the support of the state's largest utility provider, Rocky Mountain Power, and two environmental groups, Utahns for Clean Energy and Healthy Environmental Alliance. But HEAL Utah says it doesn't support the bill, so much as it doesn't oppose it. It doesn't go far enough, they say, a mandatory would be better than voluntary. Bramble says the bill was drafted in the spirit of compromise.
"This bill is the end product of several months of discussion, negotiation, compromise, concession by all parties," Bramble says.
Bramble says the compromise hinged on the question of whether to mandate renewable energy development, or implement a voluntary program. Rather than requiring energy providers to hit a fixed target, he says his bill requires industry to report every five years on the progress made toward developing renewable energy. SB 202 received unanimous support in the Senate Tuesday and now heads to the House floor for further consideration.
Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2008 KCPW
1. Alex said:
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Alex van der Beek
Riga Latvia
info@solarbotanic.com
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