Sen. Chap Petersen’s (D-34) Clean Energy Future bill was wiped from the 2008 legislative agenda last week when the proposal calling for renewable energy sources and reductions in energy consumption was killed in the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee on a 3-12 vote.

Senate Bill 446 would have required energy providers to produce 20 percent of their power through renewable resources by 2020. Petersen had touted the initiative heavily during his campaign for the Senate last year.

Sen. Linda T. “Toddy” Puller (D-36) joined four other Democrats on Feb. 11 in voting against the bill, saying utilities have been moving to implement changes voluntarily.

“It had specifics the industry said they couldn’t possibly do,” Puller said. “I tried to get Chap to amend the bill, and I guess he just decided not to.”
Representatives of Dominion Virginia Power, a major energy provider, opposed the bill but declined to comment for this story.

Despite criticism that the bill was too broad, Petersen says he is confident in the legislation, which included a “green jobs” program and tax credits for producing wind and solar power in Virginia.

“I’m not disappointed about what happened,” Petersen said. “Five years ago, nobody would’ve come anywhere near this bill, and now the fact that I was able to get 18 to 20 people from the House and Senate, all Democrats, that were willing to be identified with the concept of mandatory renewable energy — I think that’s huge.”

A freshman delegate, Margaret G. Vanderhye (D-34), signed on as a House co-sponsor of Petersen’s bill. Vanderhye also put forward a bill to require electric utilities to inform consumers of renewable energy options. Her measure, House Bill 1228, passed the House, 81-17, on Feb. 12. It is now before the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee.

“I think the scope of (Petersen’s bill) was very extensive and the goals were laudable, but it was probably more than they wanted to bite off,” Vanderhye said. “I think what you’re going to see from the House side is smaller bites of the apple that promote local economies. We’ll just take it one step at a time if we can’t do it overall.”

Petersen says he will re-evaluate the legislation and perhaps will introduce a similar bill in 2009.

“I’m not going to stand still,” he said. “This is a major issue and I’m going to be working on it for the next four years ... There’s no doubt that I will come back with (a bill) that will have both a mandatory renewables piece, a mandatory efficiency piece and essentially the same cap and trade system that I had in the old bill.”

Petersen noted that U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner and presidential candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama all mentioned renewable energy at the Virginia Democrats’ Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on Feb. 9.

“Once we have a new president, there’s going to be a federal law mandating this,” Petersen said. “This battle is being fought many levels above the Virginia General Assembly ... Barack Obama is fighting this battle way above (our level). Dominion Power doesn’t have the resources to take him down.”