Tom Baxter

Yes, The Weather's Hot -- But Southern Legislators Are Cool On Climate Change

By Tom Baxter
Editor
Southern Political Report

(8/21/07) This has been a sizzling August in the South, with triple-digit temperatures afflicting states across the region for days on end. But at this year’s annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston earlier this month, Southern states formed the core of the opposition to the states getting more involved in the issue of climate change.

At issue was a resolution that would have put the NCSL on record supporting the right of states to move faster than the federal government in imposing tougher measures to combat global warming, and in favor of a national standard on greenhouse gas emissions. Supporters of the measure said the policy statement was needed so that the national organization’s congressional lobbyists would be able to weigh in on behalf of the states in the crafting of any future federal legislation dealing with climate change.

At an August 6 meeting of the group’s Agriculture, Environment and Energy Committee, the resolution passed on a vote of 24-12, but failed to gain a required three-fourths majority, after delegates from Georgia attempted to insert language that would have required a cost-benefit analysis of any climate change legislation affecting the states. The states which voted down the resolution were Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Oklahoma.

“We felt it was asinine to ask Congress for legislation that would be rammed down our throats without some analysis of the cost-benefit,” said state Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, a Republican from a fast-growing district south of Atlanta.

When the full conference met later, supporters of the resolution gained a partial victory, amending a resolution expressing support for California in its disagreement with the feds with a watered-down reassertion of the states’ independence on climate change policy. It was enough, supporters said, to get the organization to the table when Congress debates climate policy.

This time the vote was 40-8, with Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming on the losing end.

“Most of these states are big utility, energy-producing states,” said Del. Jim Hubbard, chair of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (NCEL), which supported the resolution.

“I wouldn’t call it a Southern thing,” Adam Schafer, executive director of NCEL, said of the opposition. “I would say maybe it was more a coal thing, more a Southern Company and Peabody Company thing.”

There have been reports in environmental publications that Southern Company and other utility interests which could be affected by tougher restrictions on greenhouse gases lobbied the issue heavily at NCSL. Seabaugh said he had been advised by the Southern Company before heading to Boston that “they were neutral on the policy.”

Seabaugh remains unconvinced of the science behind what he usually refers to as “quote-unquote global warming.”

“I will venture a guess that in 10 years we won’t be talking about global warming, but we’ll still be talking about how we produce electricity in a cost-efficient, environmentally friendly way,” the Georgia legislator said.

But for Hubbard, the vote of the full conference was another confirmation that most lawmakers now view the scientific debate over climate change to be settled.

“The big utilities can’t hide behind science anymore. They seem to be opposing this resolution based solely on the profit motive,” Hubbard said.

Whether it’s called global warming or something else, the issues arising from climate change have already arrived with urgency in the post-Katrina South.

Because of its high growth rate and environmental sensitivity, the rest of the country will be looking to the region to see how it deals with these issues in the years ahead, said Andy Brack, president of the Center for a Better South, which this week is releasing a book with an assortment of suggestions for both policy makers and consumers, called “Getting Green: Progressive Environmental Policy Ideas for the American South.”

The book’s first two recommendations call on each state to designate a climate change commission and develop a plan for cutting emissions.

Some Southern states have already moved in that direction. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist named a 21-member panel to put teeth into the executive orders he signed in July calling for the state to begin reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. The goals set by Crist are less ambitious that what the Better South group is recommending, but in terms of environmental policy in the South, they signal a sea change, and an attempt by Crist to get out ahead on issues the entire region will be struggling with, for as long as those thermometers top 100 degrees.