Perriello responds to GOP attack on green bill vote

Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5th District, is celebrating American independence a few days early.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to pass the American Clean Energy Security Act with a narrow vote of 219-212. Perriello was one of 211 Democrats to vote in favor of the bill. Forty-four Democrats opposed it.

“I’m just ecstatic,” Perriello said Wednesday. “We’ve just declared our independence from foreign oil.”

House Republicans, however, are not so happy. Eight Republicans voted for the bill and 168 opposed it.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has paid for a TV advertisement — which began airing Wednesday and will run for a week in the Lynchburg and Roanoke markets — attacking Perriello and Obama for their support of the green jobs bill.

The 30-second ad claims that the ACES bill will “destroy jobs and cost middle class families $1,800 a year — every time you turn on a switch.”

To combat global warming, the cap-and-trade bill would set a limit on greenhouse gas emissions and charge companies allowances for further emissions. Initially, however, allowances would be handed out at no cost. The ACES bill would require a 17 percent reduction in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 2020 and by more than 80 percent by 2050.

The result could be higher energy costs for consumers — Perriello said the increases would average $12 a month — although varying sources predict a wide range of estimated costs. The government-backed Environmental Protection Agency said the bill would cost consumers an average of $80 to $111 a year, but that would fluctuate as the cost of allowances rises.

The independent Congressional Budget Office estimated an average annual cost of $175 per household, but that would vary with wealth. Low-income consumers could save $40 a year, but high-income consumers could see as much as a $340 increase.

The conservative Heritage Foundation predicts that by 2035, the average household bill could top $1,241, assuming that reduced energy sources would not be immediately replaced by new technology. Republicans have also referenced an MIT study claiming that consumers could see a $3,100 increase, but an author of that study has declared it was being improperly cited. 

“I think it’s hogwash and cowardice,” Perriello said of the new television ad. “We have had an oil dependence probably since the day I was born and I think this bill is going to be a big winner for central and Southside Virginia. For biofuel, for our farmers.”

Perriello supported converting tobacco farms into future biomass producers and turning farm and municipal waste into power. The bill aims to create millions of green jobs through alternative energy sources, but Republicans claim the legislation would actually cut jobs and depress real estate prices.

“It’s just false,” Perriello said. “We’re already losing the jobs. This is what (critics) don’t get. We are hemorrhaging jobs in the energy sector. The status quo that they support is a job-loss strategy. We have a job-winning strategy by making investments in the future of technology.”

In conjunction with the Danville Pittsylvania Chamber of Commerce, Perriello will be at the Virginia International Raceway today at 11 a.m. for an announcement about “Green Skills.”