Interview With Blanche Lincoln, US Senator from Arkansas

The Daily Energy Report interviews Blanche Lincoln, US Senator to Arkansas, about her role in the Senate Committee for Energy & Natural Resources, the importance of energy efficiency and the role Arkansas plays in the energy debate.

Full Transcription:

Ben Lack: Well, this is Ben Lack from the Daily Energy Report, and today we are speaking with Arkansas Senator, Blanche Lincoln. Senator Lincoln, thank you so much for your time.

Blanche Lincoln: Well, thank you for having me. I’m delighted to be with you guys, and tell you a little bit about what’s going on in Washington and certainly what’s going on in Arkansas.

Ben Lack: Thank you. I’d like to talk to you about the work you’ve been doing on behalf of Arkansas. So can you talk to us about your role on the Senate Committee for Energy and Natural Resources?

Blanche Lincoln: Well, I think I represent probably your average Arkansan who does truly believe that we have great opportunities before us in terms of some of the goals that we all share a great deal of passion about. And that is certainly cleaning up our environment, curbing our greenhouse gas emissions, reducing our dependence on foreign oil. I think Arkansans can definitely coalesce around the idea of decreasing our dependency on foreign oil both for economic reasons but also for national security reasons. And also looking at the advancement of clean energy technologies as well as the job creation that is obviously a great opportunity as well in this economy from meeting some of those priorities and dealing with some of those policies. I think, again, like all Arkansans, I don’t believe that there’s only one way to achieve those goals. And I think that we’re going to continue to work together to make them happen. And one of the things that we have done that I think has been very, very productive… Now I’ll say a little bit about Arkansans. Arkansans really believe in progress. They believe in getting results and getting progress and moving forward. And one of the things we have done here in the Senate is the bipartisan clean energy legislation that we produced out of the Senate Energy Committee. It’s a very important bill. I think it can help us make some immediate gains towards the goals I think all of us share. My hope is that we’ll see that happen. We passed the Bipartisan American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009 last June. And we did it by a vote of 15 to 18. We did it with four Republicans supporting the bill out of committee. The legislation will be coupled with energy tax incentives out of the Senate Finance Committee which I also sit on and will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and incentivize renewable energy, doing all of that while improving the environment and creating much-needed jobs that are going to benefit Arkansas and the rest of the country. The bill included a renewable electricity standard, a clean energy bank to improve financing of advanced energy technologies. We know that there are great technologies out there that are being developed. In this climate and in this environment, this economic environment, making sure that the resources and the capital investments are there to really advance those energy technologies is critical. So the clean energy bank is a huge part of that. A variety of energy efficiency measures for lighting, building, manufacturing, and then responsible oil and gas development measures which really focused on looking at those oil and gas development measures in areas where we already had existing infrastructure. There were countless other things in the bill. I think those are some highlights. We definitely focused on some startups in terms of where we go in developing the grid and also looking at nuclear power and things like that. But I was definitely a key play in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in getting that bipartisan renewable electricity standard passed, and I was excited about that. I think that helps us set a standard that we can work towards, gives us goals and certainly reasons to do things. The R.E.S. would require fifteen percent of utilities energy portfolio to come from renewable sources of energy and four percent of that could be met with energy efficiency. I think that’s important too. Far too often people underestimate the importance of efficiency. I think it’s absolutely a critical part of the puzzle in terms of reducing our energy consumption and the energy production. I fought to make sure that the renewable energy standard treated safe like Arkansas which don’t have a huge amount of wind and solar power equally. We still very much support them. Those are important powers to us because we actually produce windmill blades. We have three manufacturing facilities that produce windmill blades. We also have a facility that produces the windmill turbine. And we also work with a lot of the solar technology. I mean, that’s about 2,500 jobs for Arkansas and the possibility of creating those jobs. So we’re very, very supportive of wind energy and solar. But the concerns we have is that since we don’t have a lot of that, if you create that as a center part of the renewable energy standard, then you’re going to have states that are winners and losers. We want everyone to be a winner because we want everyone to participate. We know that we jetted our objectives of, again, lessening our dependence on foreign oil and lowering our greenhouse gases and creating jobs if we make sure that everybody remains at the table, and we don’t pick winners and losers. One of the things that I’ve spent a lot of time on, particularly in this bill, was Energy Efficient Motor Rebate Program. And during the consideration of the bill, I was able to successfully pass an amendment that would create an energy efficient motor rebate program for large industrial motors. And the purpose was to offset the cost difference between new, high efficiency motors and repair of older, less efficient motors. It would have provided a rebate of twenty-five dollars per horse power per customer for a high-efficiency motor. Those are the things we also take for granted. It turns out that this amendment became one of the biggest energy savers in the entire bill with estimates that would save an estimated 1.5 billion kilowatts per hour annually. And remember that when we create more efficient motors and more efficiency in, whether its appliances or anything else, that’s energy we don’t have to produce because it’s energy we don’t use. The program also created a significant amount of labor which could lead to 3,000 to 4,500 new jobs in the U.S. workforce to build and install new motors and remove those inefficient motors. Looking at the efficiency of how we can both create jobs, lessen our dependence on foreign oil, but more importantly, lower those carbon outputs and those greenhouse gas emissions. So I’m looking to reintroduce that amendment on a separate bill in the future but hoping we pass it in the committee. But I’m hoping we’ll be able to bring up more of what’s going on from the committee standpoint and certainly the bill we passed in the bipartisan way which I think is tremendous first step in getting us all to where we want to be.

Ben Lack: And the energy security which is kind of the underlying message is really starting to get more attention as these types of legislations are being discussed and even passed because I think more and more of the market and more and more Americans are realizing the importance of trying to get off of foreign oil. And with the work that you guys are trying to do at the Capitol Hill to try to get this stuff passed is really stuff that more and more folks need to know about. And I know that just this past week, President Barack Obama announced in Savannah a proposed six billion dollar energy efficiency program called the Home Star Program. And I was just curious if you could provide us with a couple of thoughts on what you thought about the program, and if you thought it would actually happen.

Blanche Lincoln: Well, for those that are not as in tune to what the program is it’s one offered by the administration but it’s modeled after the successful Cash-for-Clunkers program. And it offers incentives to homeowners and contractors to improve the energy efficiency of homes around the country. And just as those energy efficient motors are great because that’s energy we don’t burn, the more efficient we find our homes through whatever programs we’ve got, whether it’s caulking or weatherization and a whole host of different things. Again, it lowers our utility bills, but it’s also energy that we don’t have to produce. And those are critical programs. They make such a big difference, and they make an immediate difference. You know, these are not new technologies in a sense that we have to develop them and research them and figure out this new technology is going to produce energy. What we’re doing is just eliminating the need for the energy so we never have to produce it to begin with. But the program that they’re proposing is divided into two parts. There’s a Silver Star program and a Gold Star program. The silver star program will be administered quickly. We want to see it help create jobs, and we’ll provide homeowners with up to $3,000 to make energy saving improvements to their homes. And then the gold star program will be conducted over a longer period and will focus on more comprehensive energy efficiency improvements. But these programs are going to provide up to $3,000 to homeowners as well to be able to do that. I’ve worked extensively with the American Institute of Architects as well. And we’ve also been working with folks I’ve just met with today on the light-heat program and some of the money that came through the Recovery Act to assist homeowners, particularly low-income homeowners, in weatherization too. Those programs are excellent because, one, you’ve got the help that’s out there through that light-heat program and the people that are already use to working with those low-income homeowners to make weatherization adjustments in their home that are going to save them obviously on their utility costs. But, again, it’s just energy we’re not going to have to produce because it’s not being used. So there’s great opportunities out there. We need to look for all of those opportunities. We need to incentivize them and get people focused on just the little things they can do. I know that I watch my energy bill. I pay the bills in my house. I go behind my kids every morning when they go off to school and turn off all the lights. I also turn down the thermostat. I make sure that I’m watching those kinds of things. We all can do a little bit. You know there’s great technologies. There’s great research out there. We’ve got to all get behind that. And we’ve got to be passionate about it. But we’ve also got to be passionate enough to take the steps that we can take on our own to really make a difference.

Ben Lack: So talk to us a little bit about where the state of Arkansas kind of fits into the energy discussion and where you think the state is trying to go as the debate gets talked about more and more.

Blanche Lincoln: Well, Arkansas definitely wants to be a player in moving us to, again, less foreign energy dependence. We want to make sure that we’re lessening our carbon output and our greenhouse gas emissions. And we certainly want to make sure that we’re creating good jobs. We’ve seen what that means when you’ve got those windmill blades jobs coming in for those factories  and other things like that. And I think they’ve got a great role to play. But I also think that Arkansas, because it is predominantly an agricultural state and the fact that you’ve got well over twenty-five percent of our economy based in agriculture, we want to be a part of the solution and not considered a part of the problem. And I think Arkansas’s worked hard at that. Our utility companies have worked hard to diversify. Our state has diversified in terms of its resources. You look at biomass from the agricultural standpoint whether it’s wood chips. You know, our top two industries are poultry and forestry in Arkansas. Well, the fact is between biochips and biomass wood chips and other by-products in the forestry industry as well as chicken litter, you’ve got a tremendous resource there. You can make energy out of poultry litter. You can also make jet fuel out of poultry litter. You can make pellets. You can make all kinds of different onsite electricity produced through biomass and, of course, agriculture. Agricultural waste have a tremendous role to play as well. Whether it’s looking at fuel, like cellulosic-based ethanol. Those are going to be great fuels for the future, and they’re going to come from our agricultural by-products in most instances. We want to make sure that we’re being innovative so that we’re looking and working with our growers to be able to grow crops that don’t impact the food source. And we’ve got farmers now that are working with different crops like grapeseed and sunflower seeds. Looking at things like cottonseed oil but also cotton stalks and rice hulls, rice straw. So many different things that we have to offer in Arkansas, and we’re excited about the possibilities of all of those in our state in playing a role in a cleaner environment and lessening our dependence on foreign oil and making sure that we’re creating an independent energy source in this country that’s renewable.

Ben Lack: Fantastic. Absolutely. So because there are so many different solutions that the state can offer from the agricultural side, where do you see investments coming from? Are there certain discussions being had in Congress, in the Senate to talk about ways to be able to provide the research and the funding for these groups to get off the ground? Can you shed a little bit of light on that for us?

Blanche Lincoln: Well, I think one of the best things Congress can do, quite frankly, on those things is create predictability. And this will have to be my last question because they’ve just called a vote. I’ll have to run over to Capitol. One of the things is predictability. And I think the tax code is a great place to start with that. Meaning, if we had predictability in the tax code and we would have known that the extension of bio-fuels tax credits would have been there, the blenders credits and others, then we probably wouldn’t have seen ninety percent of our bio-fuels industry dormant right now and fifty percent of them are bankrupt. But the fact is they can go into the marketplace whether it’s venture capital dollars or the financial institutions or investors of any sort, to get them to invest in these newer technologies and these newer industries because the predictability of the environments that government should be creating in the financial worlds for them, is just not predictable. And so we’ve got to do a better job at that. We’ve got to do a better job at creating predictability in the financial world of places where these resources are going to come to invest into these industries there’s no doubt. And I think in terms of also looking out at how we move, we did this energy bill in the Senate Energy Committee in June. If we had that bill up on the floor and passed it, then I think the predictability from the industry side was that we really are going to move forward on something. That we’re going to take step-by-step, the measures that we need to do to get ourselves to the endpoint and the endgame of what we want to do and that is to clean up our environment, create good jobs, and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. Waiting on agencies to write regs and do all other kinds of things is going to take a long time in terms of some of these bigger more major bills, we need to get started now and take those first steps, knowing that down the road that we’re going to do more and more as we increase our knowledge of what we’re capable of but at least get started. I think that’s just essential in this economy.

Ben Lack: Well, Senator Lincoln, I really do appreciate your time today and your remarks. I know that you’re coming up for reelection in a couple of months. So we all want to wish you the best of luck for the upcoming election, and thanks again for coming on the Daily Energy Report. And we hope you have a great day.

Blanche Lincoln: Thanks, Benjamin. It’s great to be with you. I appreciate your good wishes on the campaign. We’re going to work hard and make sure that we answer to Arkansas and get a lot of good solutions coming back up here to Washington. Thanks so much for having me.

Ben Lack: Have a great one. Talk to you soon.

Blanche Lincoln: You bet. Take care.

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