Coalition changes tactics in clean energy effort

The Sierra Club and more than 20 other Missouri organizations will band together to form the Missouri Clean Energy Coalition, environmental activists announced Wednesday during an Earth Day rally in the state Capitol Rotunda.

The coalition will focus on lobbying state agencies to approve Clean Line's proposed Grain Belt Express, an interstate power line that would distribute electricity from Kansas' wind turbines across Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

The group also wants to influence how Missouri regulates home solar panels, how utility companies incorporate renewable power sources and how the state handles the Environmental Protection Agency's directive to outline a carbon-reduction plan.

The coalition will downplay explicit references to climate change, focusing instead on long-term economic benefits and public health. For instance, several speakers Wednesday touted a Harvard study asserting that if Missouri adopts the EPA's clean power plan, it could prevent 12,000 premature deaths between 2020 and 2030.

"That's essentially like a pretty fully loaded airplane going down every single year," said John Hickey, director of the Sierra Club's Missouri chapter. "Imagine at Lambert International Airport, every single year - bam! Airplane goes down, everybody dead. If there weren't a public outcry to solve that, it'd be shocking."

Coalition activists warned if Missouri drags its feet on drafting a clean power plan, the EPA could impose its own standards, which probably would be less flexible. Activists passed around pink fliers Wednesday that read "Don't Let EPA Write Missouri's Plan."

"Missouri's already doing a great job building up its clean energy economy," said Andy Knott, the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign representative. "It's easier if we do (those regulations) here, and faster, too."

Besides pooh-poohing the EPA, coalition speakers Wednesday appealed to family values and jobs - framing the debate in a way Republican lawmakers, who hold veto-proof majorities in both chambers, might find more palatable.

"With all due respect to the sturgeon and the gray wolf and the baboon, I'm here today because I don't want my grandchildren to become a part of an endangered species," said John Kissel, an internist from St. Louis.

Caleb Arthur, president and CEO of Missouri Sun Solar, brought his 3-year-old son Deacon on stage and declared people don't inherit the earth from their ancestors, they borrow it from their children.

"My kids play soccer near the Meramec coal plant," Hickey said, noting several coal pollutants settle within 10 miles of a plant, including sulfur dioxide. "That's the big killer."

The Grain Belt Express, Hickey said, would create more jobs than it would displace from coal plants. And the wind power it would carry costs less than power from coal.

For instance, Clean Line, the company behind the transmission project, estimated one megawatt-hour would cost the city of Columbia about $36, according to previous reporting. A megawatt-hour from a coal plant costs the city between $40 and $45.

The Grain Belt Express still needs regulatory approval from the Missouri Public Service Commission before construction can begin. About 530 Missouri landowners are in the power line's path, which cuts across eight northern counties in the state, according to the Associated Press, and the PSC's staff has recommended denying the proposal. Four counties have rescinded approval for the project, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.