Tennessee's business and natural environment could improve if Congress adopts a new energy plan to limit carbon emissions linked with global warming and promote more nuclear and renewable energy production, a coalition of state business leaders said Thursday.
"There is no question that clean and renewable energy can result in a lot of job growth and have a major economic benefit for the valley," said former Tennessee Valley Authority Director Susan Richardson Williams, a former Tennessee Republican Party chairwoman who helped start Tennessee Business Leaders for a Clean Energy Tomorrow.
PDF: American businesses for clean energy
But other business groups suggest that congressional proposals to cap carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels only will drive up the cost of energy and hurt the economy.
"Utilizing the cap-and-trade solution for global warming to me is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic," said Deborah Woolley, president of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "It will reduce carbon emissions primarily by putting manufacturers out of business and people out of work."
The business groups are fighting over a plan unveiled last week by U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., to cap carbon emissions, create a trading system to allow utilities to use the market to reduce carbon releases and spur cleaner energy through a host of incentives, loan guarantees and research.
The measure will increase the costs of burning coal, oil and natural gas. But the tax on such emissions will be used to help consumers pay the expected increase in electricity bills and to encourage utilities and industry to use more nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass-generated energy.
A study by the Pew Charitable Trust found Tennessee ranked third in business growth in clean energy, reflecting the state's research and support of nuclear power, the landing of billion-dollar solar panel manufacturers last year in both Clarksville and Charleston, Tenn., and Nissan's plans to make battery-powered cars at its Smyrna plant. A federal lab for a spent nuclear fuel recycling center proposed in the Kerry-Lieberman bill could be located in Oak Ridge.
Ron Kenedi, vice president of Sharp Solar in Memphis, said his factory has grown from 320 employees to nearly 500 in the past year "and we continue to grow as the U.S. market grows."
While Tennessee is one of the top states for renewable energy businesses, the Volunteer State also has a disproportionate number of energy-intensive businesses drawn to the region by TVA's comparatively low energy costs. Such businesses will suffer -- and could decide to move out of the United States -- if electricity rates go up too much because of the new carbon tax, Ms. Woolley said.
But with growing global pressure to control carbon, supporters of the cap-and-trade legislation think it is important to send the right signals to the marketplace about the cost of carbon to spur new technologies.
"The landscape is going to change," said Jim Frierson, executive director for the Advanced Transportation Technology Institute in Chattanooga. "Doing nothing is not an option anymore."