Robert J. Michaels
Synopsis: Concern over emissions and climate change has led over half of the states to enact portfolio (RPS) legislation requiring regulated electric utilities to obtain some fraction of their power requirements from sources defined as Legislation to institute a federal RPS may follow. In reality, RPS is a policy in search of a rationale, at odds with principles of efficient environmental regulation and poorly suited to promote other policies favored by its supporters. The actual record of state implementations has been largely symbolic. Very few states with binding RPS requirements are currently in compliance with their own programs, and a federal RPS will be subject to the same forces that have led to state-level failure. The recent history of renewables leads to a conclusion that existing and proposed mandates are better viewed as special interest legislation than as rational responses to climate change and fossil-fuel power plant emissions. I. INTRODUCTION Electricity from renewable sources is fast becoming a multipurpose remedy that will alleviate energy scarcities, abate air pollution, and mitigate climate change. As of July 2007, over half of the states had enacted portfolio standards (RPS) requiring electric utilities to obtain portions of their power from sources legislatively defined as renewable. ' On August 4, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of a national RPS, but the Senate failed to pass a comparable provision.2 Supporters of a national RPS have long viewed it as an environmental measure that can also slow the accumulation of greenhouse gases (GHG).3 They have more recently argued that it is, among others, an industrial policy to manufacturing jobs and declining regions, a market intervention that could lower energy prices, a stimulus to development of new technologies, an instrument for risk management, a trade policy initiative, and a weapon in the war on terrorism.4 In reality, a national RPS is singularly ill-suited for any of these tasks. It will be an inefficient and inequitable environmental policy that reduces emissions at higher cost than necessary and is largely incompatible with existing air quality regulations. Some of the non-environmental rationales are elementary economic fallacies and others are at best conjectures. Worse yet, the record of state-level RPS compliance and enforcement strongly suggests that the effects of a federal program will be either minimal or perverse. Psychologically and politically satisfying, a national RPS is likely to obstruct the development of efficient policies. The range of public figures and distinguished commissions favoring a national RPS may indicate no more than an expectation that it will provide a new forum for interest-group politics.5 We begin with data on renewables which suggests that a federal RPS will bring little diversity in generation resources and few environmental benefits. The next sections examine advocates' claims for it, finding them inadequate at best. As environmental policy, an RPS is inefficient by every economic standard. It is a costly measure whose effects on emissions are uncertain, difficult to integrate with existing environmental regulation, and needlessly disruptive of generation investments intended to comply with anticipated emissions rules. Other purported consequences are also questionable. As macroeconomic or industrial policy, a national RPS cannot possibly create net increases in employment and rural areas that it will revitalize seldom need the help. Claims that it is necessary to stimulate reductions in production cost lose their force in a global economy, as do expectations that it will position the U.S. to dominate the world renewables market. Rather than facilitating risk management, standard renewables contracts only transfer it from utilities to captive customers. National security is better advanced through direct policies instead of compulsory investment in renewables. …