Smart Climate Legislation Will Protect the Environment and Our Customers

As the nation’s largest purchaser of renewable energy, we support national goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change will continue to be a focus of our work as we build on our industry leadership in energy efficiency, renewable energy and emissions reduction.

Voluntary steps alone will not be enough to address the climate change challenge. Successfully meeting that challenge will require a regulatory program that is national in scope, market-based, equitable and comprehensive in nature. Any new climate change policy should:

• Protect the environment, the economy and our national security;
• Allocate carbon allowances to electric utilities and merchant generators to help reduce energy price increases to consumers and ensure a reliable supply of electricity;
• Contain effective cost containment mechanisms, such as a “price collar” to protect against allowance price volatility and market manipulation;
• Recognize offsets wherever they can be found in the world, given that the potential effect of emissions on global warming is the same wherever in the world emissions occur;
• Seek out cost-effective, immediate reductions through comprehensive efforts to
  maximize energy efficiency, and deploy renewable sources of energy and other
  low carbon emitting technologies;
• Include long-term, technologically reasonable and realistic reduction
  targets; and
• Recognize that to achieve proposed emission reduction goals, national
  and state support will be needed to develop and deploy new technologies.

Edison International supports enactment of responsible climate change
legislation that achieves meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions
while minimizing disruptions to our economic recovery.