CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Chattanooga, said he thinks Americans need to pay attention in coming months to lawmakers’ efforts to craft a new national energy policy in the shadow of global warming.

“It will affect our country in many, many ways,” Sen. Corker said of legislation now emerging in an effort to lower greenhouse emissions and slow global warming. “We don’t have a policy on the energy side that really drives our country toward energy security.”

Saying he hasn’t decided “where I’m going to come down,” but labeling the expected increased cost of energy to consumers as “a tax,” Sen. Corker said the Lieberman-Warner bill now pending in the Senate is expected to be debated in June.

The bill, America’s Climate Security Act of 2007, would allow the president to appoint a five-member board to allocate revenues from emission credits in 2012, reserving 26.5 percent of the allowances, or credits, to be sold at auction much like public stocks, said Sen. Corker, who sits on the Senate Energy Committee.

Some of the “free” allowances would be given to industries that have to reduce emissions, while others would be given to groups assisting consumers. Each year until 2031, the number of credits set aside for auction would increase and the percent allowing industrial emissions gradually would decrease to none, theoretically prompting industries to find cleaner ways to operate.

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