* Requires utilities to generate 15 pct renewable by 2021
* Bill gains two co-sponsors this week, now 4 Republicans
* Senators want to pair bill with ethanol incentives
By Timothy Gardner
WASHINGTON, Sept 24 (Reuters) - U.S. Senators backing a bi-partisan
bill that would make big utilities begin embracing renewable
electricity believe they can get enough votes to pass it without
having to add oil or nuclear incentives to the measure, a
Congressional aide said on Friday.
Democrat Jeff Bingaman, the chair of the Senate's energy committee,
and Senator Sam Brownback, a Republican, introduced the bill this week
that includes a Renewable Electricity Standard, or RES.
The RES is backed by environmentalists and other groups as a
consolation prize after the failure by the Senate to pass a more
comprehensive climate bill, one of the key priorities of the Obama
Administration. The law would help reduce greenhouse gases by cutting
back on fossil fuel consumption.
The bill, which is similar to an RES that passed easily in Bingaman's
committee last year, would require big utilities to generate 15
percent renewable power such as solar, wind, geothermal, and some
hydroelectric, by 2021.
Since the senators introduced the new bill, two more senators have
climbed on board as co-sponsors, bringing the total to 25. It has four
Republican co-sponsors, including Charles Grassley.
The bill would need 60 votes to pass in the 100-member Senate, but the
aide cautioned against counting co-sponsors.
"Many other senators are ready to vote for the bill but they are not
ready to co-sponsor it," the aide told Reuters, adding that some
senators do not want to add their names to it before the Nov. 2
congressional elections.
Bingaman told the Reuters Washington Summit this week he believes the
bill will be taken up in a so-called lame duck session after the
elections. [ID:nN22275479]
He also told the Summit he does not see a big climate bill reaching
the Senate floor in the remainder of President Barack Obama's first
term, undermining the administration's hopes of taking a lead role at
the global climate talks.
Because the RES bill may be the only chance of getting energy
legislation through the Senate this year, many senators who are not
co-sponsors are attempting to add items to it that would get them
support at home.
Some senators see a chance to boost coal power and want electricity
from plants where companies bury carbon emissions in the ground to be
counted as a renewable power. Others want nuclear power to count.
KEEPING IT CLEAN
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