Matheson says Democrats moving too fast on climate-change bill

Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, says his party may be moving too quickly on a bill to cap greenhouse-gas emissions — even after a White House meeting on Tuesday where President Barack Obama and Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee met to try to close divisions on the issue among themselves.

Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said at the meeting that he wants to pass the bill out of the committee by Memorial Day. But Matheson, a leader on energy issues for moderate "Blue Dog" Democrats, complained, "We don't have a complete bill yet."

Matheson said a completed bill should be available for some weeks, so "both Congress and third-party groups can do their analysis and crunch the numbers to find out what impacts are on jobs, on utility rates and on energy costs in an informed way."

He explained that while a 605-page draft bill has been written, "there are significant gaps where items have been left blank on very critical, substantive issues."

For example, he said, "the whole section of the bill that deals with how emissions allowances would be distributed (in a cap-and-trade program to cut carbon emissions to address global warming) is blank right now. That will have a huge impact on consumer (electricity) rates."

Also, he said, "the issue of how offsets are going to be determined in the agricultural world — and offsets are where you buy something else to get a credit for pollution emissions — that section is pretty much open."

He said such yet-to-be-written sections raise questions about "regional wealth transfer, where certain regions of the country may end up sending dollars to other regions of the country" because they depend more on coal for electricity than others.

"I want to make sure in my perspective that ratepayers in Utah aren't sending their money elsewhere. I've raised questions about timing and how it would affect certain industries," he said.

He said he is also concerned that the bill is setting new standards for such things as how much electricity must come from renewable sources, or new energy-efficiency standards or having a new low-carbon fuel standard without looking at how they all fit together.

"I've raised the question: How do all these fit together in terms of regional impacts again, that are going to affect some regions more than others; and are they fair and achievable in terms of where technology is today?" he said.

Matheson said Obama expressed an interest in Congress finding a consensus on the bill. "He just wanted to encourage people to work together and build consensus. He did acknowledge that there are regional issues that need to be resolved, and I appreciated that."

Matheson has already been taking political shots from both sides on the bill. For example, the National Wildlife Federation ran full-page ads in the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday urging voters to call Matheson and "tell him it's time to target climate change."

The National Republican Congressional Committee on Monday issued a news release attacking him and questioning whether he will "support a national energy tax that could burden thousands and kill jobs."

Matheson said, "What I find interesting is that when the bill has not even been written, people are out there advocating to vote for or against it."

E-mail: lee@desnews.com