By Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom
(Reuters) – The White House hopes to capitalize on growing support from U.S. utilities, unions and green groups for a national clean energy mandate by pushing Congress to pass a law requiring the U.S. grid to get 80% of its power from emissions-free sources by 2030, according to a senior administration official.
The goal would fall short of President Joe Biden’s stated ambition of net zero carbon emissions in the grid by 2035, but is an interim milestone that could be passed without Republican support through a process called budget reconciliation.
“Our goal is to enact this into law,” deputy White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told Reuters. “There are multiple pathways to get meaningful progress in the power sector. We think this is a really powerful one in terms of giving utilities a clear and clean planning horizon.”
Requiring utilities to move away from coal and natural gas is a cornerstone of U.S. President Joe Biden’s plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions in half across the U.S. economy in the next decade.
The country’s grid is currently 40% clean, but getting to 80% by 2030 could be achieved with existing technologies at no additional cost to ratepayers in every region because the cost of renewables and batteries have come down so much, according to a new analysis by researchers at Energy Innovation and the University of California, Berkeley.
A so-called clean energy standard would require reductions in emissions by adopting renewables like wind and solar, using nuclear energy or finding ways to suck up and sequester greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel plants.
The policy has support from members of both parties in Congress, though Republicans have not embraced the administration’s aggressive timeline due to concerns that it will drive up costs and kill jobs in fossil fuel industries.
Democrats could pass a CES with a simple majority as a revision of budget legislation if the CES sets a 2030 target since reconciliation measures must fall within a 10-year window.
The Senate is currently divided 50-50 between Democrats and Republican, but Democrats have control because Vice President Kamala Harris can break a tie. Legislation outside of the reconciliation process would need 60 votes to bypass a potential Republican procedural move known as a filibuster.
The White House is weighing various legislative options and speaking to lawmakers in both parties.
Many utilities already have plans to remove carbon from their systems due to investor pressure or state mandates, so they broadly support the policy. They are concerned, however, that technological breakthroughs needed to reach zero emissions may not materialize in time to meet a 2035 timeline.
This month, 13 major utilities sent a letter to Biden in support of a power sector goal that would cut emissions by 80% below 2005 levels by 2030.
“We want to position the United States to take full economic advantage of what the technological innovation positions us to do,” Zaidi said. “We are calling our shot and we are going in that direction.”
(Reporting by Nichola Groom and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by David Gregorio)
