Left-wing climate activists are stepping up their opposition to policies from top Democrats promoting nuclear energy and carbon capture, signaling a tough debate as the Biden administration advances legislation to curb power sector emissions.
Hundreds of environmental and grassroots groups, including national groups such as Friends of the Earth, Center for Biological Diversity, and the Indigenous Environmental Network, sent a letter to lawmakers Wednesday calling on them to pursue a national standard requiring 100% renewable power by 2030.
DEMOCRATS SET TO CLASH OVER WHETHER NUCLEAR AND CARBON CAPTURE WOULD AVERT OR HASTEN CRISIS
It’s a rebuttal to the clean electricity standard policy favored by the Biden administration, top House Democrats, and many more centrist environmental groups that calls for carbon-free power by 2035 but allows resources such as nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage, and even natural gas to play a role in meeting the requirements.
“Shifting the U.S. grid to zero emissions by 2030 is supported by leading climate scientists and consistent with the domestic carbon reductions to meet the U.S.’s historical climate debt and equitable fair share to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, without carbon market mechanisms,” the groups wrote.
The fight over whether to rely solely on renewable energy has been simmering largely behind the scenes among environmental groups and Democrats in recent months.
Now, the debate is beginning to break out into the open as Congress and the Biden administration negotiate an infrastructure package that is also likely the best near-term chance to pass significant climate policy.
In their own letter in late April, more than 150 national environmental groups — including Evergreen Action, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Sunrise Movement, and Sierra Club — urged top lawmakers to pass a clean electricity standard “without delay,” calling the policy “popular.”
President Joe Biden has said he wants to incorporate a clean electricity standard into the infrastructure package. Top House Democrats, led by Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone of New Jersey, have proposed sweeping climate legislation that includes requirements for carbon-free power by 2035 at its heart.
With their letter Wednesday, however, left-wing and grassroots climate groups want to make clear they won’t settle for a policy that promotes nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage, and natural gas, even for the sake of political expediency.
“The question is, ‘Should we just take the Pallone [clean electricity standard] because it’s better than nothing?’ Locking in another generation of fracking and climate injustice is not better than nothing,” said Lukas Ross, a program manager with Friends of the Earth.
“Grassroots climate justice activists across the country will rise up and oppose any bill that further entrenches fracked gas and false solutions, even if it happens to be attached to a bigger infrastructure package,” Ross added.
The letter outlines a 100% renewable energy requirement by 2030 that includes at least a 25% carve-out for distributed renewable energy resources and storage. Under such a standard, utilities would only be able to use “proven renewable technologies” such as wind, solar, and geothermal to meet the requirements.
By contrast, under the clean electricity standard proposed by House Democrats and the Biden administration, utilities would also be able to equip their natural gas plants with carbon capture or invest in building advanced nuclear reactors.
Some environmental groups, however, say that approach is necessary because the United States won’t be able to achieve carbon-free power while keeping the lights on and electricity costs affordable without incorporating zero-carbon technologies that can run 24/7. Wind and solar power are intermittent, and long-duration battery storage that can save their energy for weeks and months for later use doesn’t exist yet.
Jean Su, energy justice program director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said there’s a prevailing narrative that 100% renewable energy isn’t feasible because there isn’t the political will to figure out how to get there.
“Nobody knows exactly how to get there yet because nobody is trying,” Su said. “We need to actually try, and how we try is by putting on very stern deadlines as close as possible to now.”
Both Su and Ross told the Washington Examiner there are left-wing lawmakers interested in pursuing national renewable energy standard legislation, though they didn’t specify which offices.
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In their letter, the grassroots groups also ask for the renewable energy standard to be paired with a guarantee that half of the investments are directed to the regions that have suffered most from pollution and where economies have been dependent on fossil fuels.
They say policies that promote technologies such as nuclear energy and carbon capture, or allow natural gas to continue operating, harm the health of minority and poorer regions the most, as they’ll continue to breathe air polluted by power plant smokestacks or live near toxic mining sites.
“When you want to get to the heart of racism and inequalities, the tentacles in our energy system are very deep,” Su said. “And if you want to actually address that in our energy system, that means you have to start at the core of it, which is stopping these fossil fuel plants altogether.”
