Tenn. senators Alexander, Corker tout clean energy

Tenn. senators Alexander, Corker tout clean energy
The Associated Press
By Duncan Mansfield
Published: October 16, 2008

Tennessee Republican Sens. Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker made a pitch Wednesday for clean energy and environmental safeguards in a message that found a welcome reception from environmental activists at the Governor's Summit on Clean Energy Technology. "It is really exciting," said Steve Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "What I heard for the first time is two Tennessee senators standing up and in essence both saying they want to do something about global warming."

The two-day conference hosted by Gov. Phil Bredesen, former Sen. Howard Baker Jr. and the Baker Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee carried an economic development theme: "Clean jobs, bright future."

Alexander and Corker embraced that message while bringing a different focus to the debate. Alexander, the former governor, worried about pollution threatening the treasured Great Smoky Mountains. Corker, just back from a tour of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, had national security concerns.

"We need to have a clean air climate change bill," Alexander said, that would curb a full range of fossil fuel pollutants — not just ozone and haze pollutants, but also mercury and carbon. Alexander would key on "smokestacks and tailpipes" — power plants and vehicles.

"I can see everyday the damage that it does. I can see if from my backyard" overlooking the Smokies, he said.

While praising the Tennessee Valley Authority's commitment to install half-billion-dollar scrubbers to reduce those pollutants at its coal-fired plants closest the Smokies in East Tennessee, Alexander said: "This is not just a TVA problem, it is a problem for the whole country."

Corker, the former Chattanooga mayor and first-term senator, said he gained a greater appreciation of the ties between energy and international relations after visiting Georgia a few weeks ago as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He was struck by Europe's "muted response" to Russia's invasion of Georgia to quell separatist uprisings, which he attributed to Europe's dependence on Russia for oil and natural gas.

This new energy-clean energy issue "is not just about economics, and not just about energy security," Corker said. "It is also very much in our national security interest."

Corker predicted that whoever wins the presidential election, "we are going to have climate change legislation in the next couple of years, no question in my mind."

Corker tends to view a solution in broader terms. He talks about "policies that make us energy secure."

Alexander targets several areas deserving "mini-Manhattan Project"-like attention.

Specifically, he would boost research funding and incentives for electric plug-in cars, carbon pollution capture, nuclear waste reprocessing, advanced biofuels, solar energy, energy efficient buildings and nuclear fusion.

"The thing that was consistent here is that energy efficiency is a real high priority," Smith said of the summit. "You are hearing that from TVA, you are hearing that from the senators, you are hearing it from the governor. That is a real conversion, which I think is positive."

Alex Tapia with the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance said the summit didn't reveal any "revolutionary or groundbreaking" developments, but the conference's value was that for the first time in Tennessee "now we have all the right people" in one place talking to one another about clean challenges and opportunities.