Jeff Bingaman: “let me once again try to put this in perspective for my colleagues. As I indicated, this is an effort, another effort…”

“let me once again try to put this in perspective for my colleagues. As I indicated, this is an effort, another effort, to weaken the renewable portfolio standards we have in the bill. We put the renewable portfolio standards in here because we believe strongly it is in our national interest that we diversify the sources from which we obtain energy and that we encourage the development and improvement of the new technologies which we know can be sources of energy as we move into the future. That is why we have a renewable portfolio standard in the bill. The requirement we have is not that onerous. When we require 1 percent of the power sold by a utility by the year 2005 to be generated from renewable sources, that is not an unduly onerous requirement. All of the numbers we have been hearing about how it will cost such enormous amounts for the utilities to comply, assuming they are going to do nothing to meet excess demand in the future--the truth is, they are going to be adding generating capacity in the future to meet increased consumer demand. That is as it should be. All we are saying is, as they make those decisions about adding new generating capacity in the future, they should be encouraged, they should be incentivized, to look at renewable energy as the source for some of that power. That is, to my mind, a responsible course to follow. We are way behind other industrial allies, the countries in Europe, in beginning to use renewable energy in our country.”