Goodlatte explains opposition to energy bill

A member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told about 300 people in Lynchburg on Monday that she believes “energy is the thing that is going to make or break our future prosperity and security.”

Kristine Svinicki, speaking at Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s annual energy conference, told the crowd at Central Virginia Community College, “You get it.”

Audience members were there because they understood that Congress is debating an energy bill that is “rewriting the rules of our economy, the really fundamental things that are going to determine our future,” Svinicki said. She is a Republican appointee on the five-member, bipartisan commission that oversees nuclear-plant safety in the U.S.

The bill, called the American Clean Energy and Security Act or Waxman-Markey bill, passed the House of Representatives in May over Goodlatte’s objection and soon will come up for debate in the Senate.

“The bill sets us on a track that I find not very compelling,” Goodlatte said, asserting the House-passed version would increase energy costs without lowering global temperatures very much.

“I want to promote all the different sources of energy,” Goodlatte said, because that approach “will develop new sources of energy that are more cost-effective, and we will naturally transition to these areas rather than trying to force it like that legislation does.”

The crowd applauded when Goodlatte said, “the most greenhouse-gas-reducing, effective source of energy in the country is nuclear power.”

The energy bill, known in some circles as the cap-and-trade bill, is “the 800-pound gorilla” of energy and environmental issues this summer, said another of the speakers Goodlatte brought to Lynchburg on Monday.

Ben Lieberman of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, said, “The thing to keep in mind is how important affordable energy is to our economic health and our standard of living.”

“We see too much micromanagement from Washington, with the federal government trying to pick winners and losers among various energy sources,” Lieberman said.

“Washington’s track record isn’t very good, and it often ends up picking losers,” Lieberman said, adding that federal mandates that supported ethanol haven’t reduced prices at the pump or affected global temperatures.

“We believe the best solutions lie in the free market,” Lieberman said.

He also said that in Western states, some federally owned land has oil and natural gas beneath it “that should be produced, but federal red tape prevents it.”

“It would be better if more of those decisions were left in the hands of the states,” Lieberman said, drawing a round of applause that caused him to pause.

“I didn’t know I had an applause line,” he said. “Sometimes people boo.”

The challenge he’d expected came later, during a question and answer session with the audience.

Ursula Ball, a Lynchburg College student, asked Lieberman why he supported more use of fossil fuels. She said they worsen the asthma symptoms that affect some of her relatives.

Lieberman replied that technology allows minerals to be extracted with minimal effect on the lands.