Biden climate plan benefits ag and consumers alike

Many do not realize that reliable green electrons are now up to 4½ cents a kilowatt hour — kWh — cheaper than fossil fuel generated electricity in most places; that LA’s municipal utility buys solar power with battery backup at 2.9 cents/kWh. This disconnect is why Vice President Pence was misleading the Republican Convention, saying: “Joe Biden would abolish fossil fuels … and impose a regime of climate change regulations that would drastically increase the cost of living for working families.”

Pence and Sen. Joni Ernst also have not caught up with Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy serving 783,000 Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and South Dakota households. It provides close to 100 percent fossil-fuel free electricity, all without building more gas-fired turbines or increasing rates.

Outdated notions led Ernst to tell Convention audiences, “The Democratic Party of Joe Biden is pushing this so-called Green New Deal. If given power, they would essentially ban animal agriculture and eliminate gas-powered cars. It would destroy the agriculture industry, not just here in Iowa, but throughout the country.”

However, a peer-reviewed study found climate driven temperature changes alone could cost the United States 9 percent of GDP by 2060 when comparing high-emission and no-warming scenarios.

Green New Deal goals are different from Biden’s 100 percent carbon-free electric grid by 2035 goal. And 100 percent is essentially what has already been accomplished by MidAmerican in much of Ernst’s Iowa without destroying agriculture, but rather by providing $30.9 million in 2019 landowner easement/lease payments from wind projects and $26.3 million in property taxes.

Republican refusal to embrace nationwide no-fuel cost electricity damages small businesses elsewhere in the U.S., putting them at a competitive disadvantage because many Iowa businesses already get cheaper, fossil-fuel-free power. A 90 percent clean grid by 2035 can lead to lower electricity prices while creating more than 500,000 net new jobs.

So, others are mirroring Biden’s transition plan. For example, Tri-State Generation is more than doubling renewable energy, to serve 50 percent green electrons by 2024, enough power for 850,000 homes. It is providing its Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska consumers with a “green energy dividend.”

In July 2011, Iowa recorded 3,500 heat-related cattle deaths because the heat index rose above 110 degrees Fahrenheit for three consecutive days. So, it’s not only about that storm damaging Iowa crops Ernst lamented when touting Trump’s emergency declaration. Biden pledged to help everyone avoid severe weather by addressing the climate crisis that is making those storms worse.

There is no Republican platform this year except to depend on Trump. By jettisoning the Paris Climate Accord, ratified by nations emitting 97.8 percent of earth’s heat-producing CO2, Trump does not “have the backs” of those experiencing aridification and flooding of our farmland and proliferation of category-2-to-4 hurricanes.

Farmer’s Union economists estimate 25,000 jobs will be lost in Montana farms and ranches by mid-century if we continue drying out the land. And another 10,000 jobs will be lost in the Montana tourism, ski and sport-fishing industries. Thus, to help protect those 35,000 jobs in agriculture, we’ll need more, cheaper (i.e., no fuel-cost) renewable electricity. Compare doing what is necessary to help protect those 35,000 agriculture, tourism and sport related jobs with the 2,100 Montana coal mining jobs plus 5,000 jobs in coal impacted communities affected by the transition to renewables. Then factor in the thousands of jobs to be created in the solar and wind industries.

Even though Biden’s plan produces jobs, the shift will not be easy on those changing occupations. My grandfather owned a Stockett, Montana, coal mine. So I acknowledge that contribution to our heritage and the contribution of those who died in Ludlow, Colorado’s, labor strikes or gave their lives and bodies in coal mines. Their descendants should not be the ones to “suck-it-up” when their jobs go away because of the rapid transition to cheaper, renewable electricity, or because humanity must embrace renewables to save creation and tame damaging storms.

Government should claw back some savings accruing from the shift to no-fuel-cost energy and use that to help miners and others disrupted by the change. Renewable developers must participate too providing lease and taxes payments fairly reflecting new-found economic advantages over dirty electrons. So, please vote realistically to ensure climate justice for everyone.

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Russ Doty is a Great Falls native, retired Montana, Minnesota and Colorado attorney living in Greeley, Colorado, Montana legislator, and author who represented consumers in utility matters.