Sen. Smith Pushes to Include Clean Energy Standard in Congress’s Infrastructure Package

(KNSI) – A sweeping infrastructure bill is on the table in Washington, D.C., and Minnesota’s junior senator wants a clean energy standard for power utilities to be included in that package.

By incentivizing utilities to invest in and use clean energy, Sen. Tina Smith says the standard would come with the goal of eliminating all net greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector. The timeline for that goal is still in flux.

“We’re in the middle of negotiating that right now, but it is very doable with the legislation that I’m proposing to get to 75 or 80 percent clean energy in the next 15 or 20 years, and that’s what we need to do in order to control the worst impacts of climate change,” Smith said.

If passed, Smith says the clean energy standard would help power utilities source a greater amount of their energy from clean sources by providing grants and tax incentives.

“This flexibility is also really important,” Smith said of where utilities are sourcing cleaner power, “because it says we don’t care how you get there, we just want to make sure that you’re heading in the right direction. So, it says yes to solar and wind — which is a very rich power resource in Minnesota. It also says yes to hydroelectric or to nuclear, and it also says yes to carbon capture and storage.”

Utilities that don’t meet the standard’s benchmarks would face a penalty.

“But, all of the people we talked to say that that penalty is very likely to hardly ever be imposed, because people and utilities already are moving towards clean electricity,” Smith said. “What we want to them to do is just to get there faster.”

In addition to promoting low- or no-emission power, Smith says her plan avoids taxing utilities for the carbon they do produce.

“We have to do this in a way that doesn’t cause people to experience a huge jump in their utility bills, and this is one of the reasons that I like my strategy as a clean energy standard more than some of the ideas that other people have around putting a price on carbon, which I’m afraid is going to cause the price of energy to go up,” Smith said.

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