Charleston, SC - Citizens for Sound Conservation released the following statement regarding this week's completion and release of the SC Climate, Energy and Commerce Advisory Committee (CECAC) report:
"As an organization committed to improving South Carolina's environmental and economic quality of life, this week's release of the final CECAC report must be met with skepticism.
While the committee should be applauded for reaching consensus on a number of market-based recommendations, the report as a whole is fatally flawed because the committee did not analyze how its recommendations would impact jobs or economic development in South Carolina.
The report's Executive Summary acknowledges this, saying, 'The CECAC did not break those costs or savings down to the individual, household, or organization levels for each option, and has not fully evaluated the costs or benefits of each policy from a broader macroeconomic, social or environmental standpoint.'
Clearly, none of these recommendations can be seriously considered - even those that have consensus - before a thorough economic impact analysis has been done.
We suspect the overall impact would be huge and negative. The fifty-one recommendations are so far reaching that it's indisputable they will have a massive economic impact on our state. The problem is we have no idea what those impacts will be since the lead organization - the Center for Climate Strategies (CCS) - did not provide a comprehensive analysis. Any effort to advance these recommendations should include a thorough analysis by state forecasters and independent sources on the cost/benefit. A similar CCS controlled process recently took place in North Carolina and the ensuing analysis clearly showed prohibitive costs associated with the recommendations.
Not only is the lack of economic analysis a shared concern, but the Center for Climate Strategies itself is a source of contention. They are widely regarded as having an environmental agenda. Their funders being the likes of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, the Energy Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Turner Foundation lend credence to that claim. That being the case, it's no surprise CCS uses a boiler-plate strategy that focuses on environmental change but neglects the economic impact. The concern is that such an imbalance when formulating a new energy policy will result in new taxes, higher energy prices, more regulations and increased costs to government.
South Carolina citizens cannot afford such an outcome.
And last, it must be noted that as a recent Science and Public Policy Institute study found, no South Carolina emission reduction plan would have any 'detectable effect on the future rate of global climate change and/or its impacts on the climate of South Carolina.' We are a small cog in the global warming debate. Nothing we do will have a significant impact unless there is a collective and uniform effort undertaken across the globe. Until that happens, we can and should do our part to protect the South Carolina environment - but it cannot be at the expense of our economy.
While reducing greenhouse gas emissions in hopes of enhancing quality of life throughout South Carolina is laudable, the general public and our General Assembly must acknowledge these realities and rectify these concerns before implementing any new energy policies."
Below are select comments from participants and the public in the report's appendix that clearly reveal a lack of consensus regarding the final CECAC report. It's our contention these concerns must be addressed before there is any movement by the legislature to formulate an energy policy for the state:
Emerson Gower - Progress Energy
"Regrettably, the recommendations presented in the final report do not represent what is best for South Carolina. They would result in unknown increased costs and other potential implications for the state's residents and for our economy, in general."
Specifically, Gower is speaking about the greenhouse gas emission goals, the efficiency and renewable portfolio standards, and the insufficient quantification of costs as major concerns to Progress Energy.
Hunter Howard - SC Chamber of Commerce
"A cost/benefit analysis must be done to fully understand the effects on South Carolina's business climate and on its citizens before the General Assembly considers any recommendations."
Howard goes on to cite three specific concerns, saying, "many businesses in the state have been proactive in implementing extensive programs to reduce energy demand and those efforts should be included in any reduction goals."
"Although the Chamber believes that voluntary measures can be taken to reduce GHG emissions, any mandatory reduction should be debated at the federal level in a comprehensive manner."
"Other (energy) options such as the efficiency and renewable portfolio standard would likely have significant negative economic impacts on manufacturers, small businesses and the residents of South Carolina. A comprehensive cost/benefit analysis must be done before pursuing this goal."
Kevin Marsh - SCE&G
"In taking these concerns one step further (the greenhouse gas reduction goals and the 5% renewable and efficiency portfolio standards), one must continue to question the background data and calculations, as was noted in the CECAC process. The data sources provided by CCS were not always verifiable nor were the quantification methods and calculations fully explained. There may have been other methods to consider but this process did not allow for that option."
Jim Rogers - Duke Energy
"Duke Energy supports the concepts contained in the 51 policy options, but reserves judgment on which options are appropriate for South Carolina until cost impacts to consumers have been determined. It is important that policy makers be made aware of the fact that the direct cost impacts to South Carolina citizens from the 51 CECAC policy options were not determined in this report and therefore have not been agreed to by CECAC members."
Clint Wolf - Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness
"The 'renewable' portfolio will require technological breakthroughs to become a
significant contributor to our energy mix whereas nuclear is ready now and already supplies 50% of our electricity in South Carolina."
"We would also ask that the state look at efficient land use in formulating an energy policy and assigning costs to the various alternatives based on those analyses. A 1000MW nuclear power plant requires about 0.3 square mile of land, primarily because of perimeter requirements. The actual footprint is much less. 1000 MW of solar power requires about 50 square miles or about the area required for a superhighway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Wind farms producing 1000MW require about 200 square miles and the generation of electricity from biomass requires about 5000 square miles."
Julian Barton - Home Builders Association of SC
"Policy recommendation RCI-6 is an impediment to new home ownership, an
impediment to making our state more energy efficient, and is off-target by directing primary efforts on new homes, rather than focusing on the much larger energy efficiency issues associated with older homes."
"While the intentions of this CECAC policy recommendation (RCI-6) were likely well intended, the fact is that the implementation of this recommendation would not improve our states energy efficiency and in fact it could hurt it. Providing incentives for energy upgrades in existing homes (75% of housing inventory), or energy education for existing home owners would generate a much larger bang for the buck, than trying to squeeze marginal gains out of new state-of-the-art modern energy efficient homes."
