WASHINGTON — Several Chattanooga-area companies stand to benefit from Democratic-backed legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions, potentially generating hundreds of jobs in the region, according to an environmental lobbying group.

The Environmental Defense Fund identified Aerisyn, Alstom Power, Steam & Control Systems Inc. and Big Frog Mountain as Chattanooga companies involved in developing and manufacturing technologies that can help fight climate change.

Royal Siding and Windows in Dalton, Ga., also makes the group’s list.

In all, the group found 1,200 such companies in 12 states, including Tennessee and Georgia, and estimates that up to 5 million “green” jobs could be created if a carbon cap is enacted.

“What we have done is to, as clearly as possible, connect the dots between enacting a national cap on carbon and job creation,” said Tony Kreindler, media director for the Environmental Defense Fund. “We’ve taken a look at the actual companies out there poised to grow exponentially from this.”

President Barack Obama has backed a so-called “cap and trade” program, which would set a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases companies could emit, while allowing the buying and selling of emission allowances on the open market.

Republicans have largely panned the proposal, saying it would amount to a tax increase on businesses that would actually result in job losses.

Tennessee and Georgia senators, all Republican, have opposed cap and trade bills that have previously come up before Congress.

“The recession is no time to impose a $600-plus billion tax on everybody’s electric bill,” Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said, citing an estimate that such a bill could cost each American family $3,100 a year. “This is not the time to do that, if the time is ever right to do that.”

But Environmental Defense Fund researchers said opponents of the carbon cap fail to take into account the growth opportunities for companies that innovate.

“There will be a tremendous advantage to first movers here,” said Jackie Roberts, the group’s director of sustainable technologies. “The carbon cap is the policy that captures the most economic opportunity in as many sectors as possible: agriculture, waste heat recovery, wind energy. All those solutions only get motivated by a cap.”

Stephane Kai, a Chattanooga division head for Alstom Power, agreed that his company is likely to benefit from a carbon cap. He said the company’s Knoxville-based division developing technologies to trap carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants and the Chattanooga-based boiler retrofitting division are among the segments involved in fighting climate change.

“When you retrofit an existing coal-fired power plant boiler, you increase efficiency, so you burn less coal for the same amount of power,” Mr. Kai said. “If there will be incentives encouraging these technologies to mature and get to market quicker, obviously it will create jobs. Just imagine if every coal-fired plant adopts our technology.”

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