Washington, D.C., could adopt the nation’s first 100 percent renewable energy bill, in what supporters say would be the most aggressive, fastest-acting climate change legislation in the country.
“This would be strongest climate change legislation anywhere in the country,” Jamie DeMarco, who focuses on state and local policy for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, told the Washington Examiner.
A D.C. Council committee on Monday held a public hearing on the bill, which would move the district to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2032, compared to its current policy of obtaining 50 percent of its power from renewables by that year.
The Democrat-dominated states of California and Hawaii also have laws mandating 100 percent electricity from carbon-free sources, but those set a later target date than D.C. is proposing — 2045.
“This bill would be a leading piece of legislation for our country,” Mary Cheh, a Democrat on the D.C. Council who first introduced the bill in July, told the Washington Examiner in the lead-up to the hearing held by the Committee on Business and Economic Development.
Washingtonians are “dismayed at what they are seeing at the national level,” Cheh said. The district, under Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, is already among the furthest along in transitioning away from fossil fuels and conserving energy.
Little coal is consumed in the District, less than in any state other than Vermont or Rhode Island.
The District uses less energy than any state except Vermont, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Cheh’s bill, which could be voted on by the end of the year, would also create energy efficiency standards for existing buildings, both privately-owned ones and those owned by the District, a first-of-its-kind proposal in the nation.
Tommy Wells, director of the district’s Department of Energy and Environment, told the committee that 74 percent of D.C.’s greenhouse gas emissions come from buildings.
The bill would also allow the District to enact regional agreements with neighboring Virginia and Maryland to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
To help pay for the transition to renewables, the bill would impose a fee on electricity and natural gas consumption that the legislation’s authors say would add $2.10 to D.C. residents’ average monthly gas bills and less than $1 to their average monthly electricity bills.
About 20 percent of the money raised from those fees would be used to provide financial help to low-income D.C. ratepayers. The rest would go to local “sustainability” projects.
More than 100 witnesses were scheduled to testify at Monday’s all-day hearing including representatives from environmental groups, business leaders, and officials from D.C. utilities Pepco and Washington Gas.
Almost all of those who testified spoke positively about the bill, although some suggested changes.
“I haven’t heard anyone say kill the bill,” DeMarco noted during his testimony. “That is as close to consensus as humanly possible.”
Erika Wadlington, director of government relations at the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, contested a provision of the bill that would require electricity suppliers to engage in long-term contracts, lasting at least seven years, for renewable energy.
Long-term contracts, supporters say, are intended to encourage the building of new wind and solar — with guaranteed long-term financing — while protecting ratepayers. Buying energy in bulk, so to speak, can help lock in a lower rate.
But Wadlington, along with utility officials, testified that these long-term contracts are inflexible, because the established rate may not reflect changing market conditions.
Wadlington offered praise for the District’s energy policy goals, saying “we support and applaud the mayor’s commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050.”
Other witnesses said the legislation should expand to allow for carbon-free “clean” energy sources that aren’t renewable to account for the 100-percent target.
These include advanced nuclear reactors, or carbon, capture, and storage technologies that can collect carbon emissions from fossil fuel plants and store it underground.
Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, and former EPA deputy administrator in the Obama administration, noted that the District currently gets almost half of its electricity from nonemitting sources, a mix that includes nuclear, hydropower, and biomass, along with solar and wind. The rest is mostly natural gas.
Josh Freed, who leads the clean energy program at the center-left think tank Third Way, testified that D.C. could achieve 100 percent carbon-free electricity within a year or two of the law’s passage — a much faster timeline than the renewable-only target set in Cheh’s bill.
Lawmakers in California recently recognized the limitations of a wind- and solar-only approach, passing a bill this summer to require that 100 percent of the state’s electricity come from carbon-free sources by 2045 — allowing nonrenewable sources to qualify.
Hawaii’s 100-percent law, meanwhile, calls for the state’s electricity to come from entirely “clean energy” by 2045.
Cheh, however, insisted that the more aggressive 100 percent renewable energy target is “not pie in the sky.”
A recent United Nations report said global emissions should be net-zero by midcentury to avoid the worst outcomes of climate change, heightening the urgency to act.
“If we want to get there, we have to chart the path to get there,” Cheh told the Washington Examiner. “In D.C., we are doing that.”
