WASHINGTON (April 3, 2014) – A new Kentucky law approved late yesterday will raise Kentuckians’ electricity bills. This bill mirrors efforts that big polluters and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have unsuccessfully pushed in other states to undermine upcoming federal standards reducing carbon pollution from dirty power plants—the key driver of climate change.
David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, issued this statement:
“This misguided measure will saddle Kentuckians with higher electricity bills while padding the profits of the state's biggest polluters. It will also make it harder for the state to increase energy efficiency and switch to cleaner, lower cost energy.
“Coal companies and their political backers want to lock Kentucky into the most expensive way of curbing power plants’ dangerous carbon pollution. Their ultimate agenda is to block every effort to cut the pollution driving the worst impacts of climate change.
“Luckily for consumers elsewhere, ALEC and big polluters haven’t been successful: Lawmakers in Virginia and Florida blocked the polluters’ bills. And cooler heads prevailed in Kansas and even in coal-dominated West Virginia, where legislatures instead passed bills that allow state officials to write carbon reduction plans that will meet the nation’s clean air laws.”
Here is a blog by NRDC’s President Frances Beinecke, covering similar efforts underway in other states orchestrated by the ALEC and its allies that deserve scrutiny: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/fbeinecke/alec_and_big_polluters_try_to.html.