Wyo. governor talks energy with Western lawmakers

JACKSON, Wyo. - Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal on Monday warned western state lawmakers that despite easy platitudes about working together, competition among the states often blocks interstate cooperation.

Representatives from many western states have said they see the need for streamlining the permitting and siting process for construction of new power lines. Building a new line commonly requires years of working through a bewildering array of federal, state and local permits, lawmakers and industry officials said.

But despite lawmakers' calls for increased cooperation on transmission lines, Freudenthal warned them that much of what they're asking for cuts across the established grain of interstate politics.

"Cooperation is contradictory to the fundamental way we relate to each other," Freudenthal said during a symposium on energy issues. "As states, we compete."

"We compete for economic development; we compete for water resources; we compete for ink in the newspapers; we compete for attracting good and bright minds to our universities," he added. "We compete."

Freudenthal also said it takes both legislative action and a governor's approval to commit a state to a course of action.

The existing political and regulatory systems within states demand that they put their citizens and rate-payers first, Freudenthal said.

"I don't appoint a public service commission to have them worry a whole lot about the rate-payers in Colorado, or Utah, or California or Washington," Freudenthal said.

As governor of the nation's leading coal-producing state, Freudenthal singled out California for criticism for its laws effectively banning the new importation of power from coal-fired plants.

"California runs around saying, 'We're clean and pure and green,' Freudenthal said. "Their use of coal-fired electrons has gone up in the last three years, not down. While they've done all of this 'Oh we're virtuous about coal.'"

Freudenthal said producing 1,000 cubic feet of clean-burning natural gas for export to California can generate 2,000 cubic feet of carbon dioxide that's released into the atmosphere in Wyoming.

"To some degree, it's like they're looking out their front yard and saying, 'We've got a great ocean view,' and throwing their beer cans in the backyard," Freudenthal said of California. "And Wyoming happens to be the beer can place."

Edward Randolph, chief policy consultant to the California State Assembly's Committee on Utilities and Commerce, said California imports 27 percent of its power and said that 15.5 percent of the state's power comes from coal.

A special legislative session on budget issues kept California lawmakers from attending. New Mexico lawmakers were also forced to cancel because of a budget session.

Randolph said almost all of the state's energy decisions are wrapped around the state's greenhouse gas reduction bill, which requires reducing greenhouse emissions by 80 percent by 2030. Other state law effectively prohibits energy utilities in the state from signing long-term contracts for power from coal-fired power plants.

States that sent legislators to participate in the event include: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.