A subcommittee of the House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee is scheduled Monday to consider a rule pertaining to whether or not Idaho should participate in the federal mercury cap and trade program.
Martin Bauer with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality will make a presentation to the subcommittee. The subcommittee could then vote to draft a bill to reject or accept DEQ's recommendation that Idaho not participate in the federal pollution-trading program.
Idaho has a zero cap for mercury emissions, which in practice prevents a coal-fired power plant from operating in the state because traditional plants can't operate without any mercury emissions.
If the state opted to participate in the cap and trade program, it would allow operators of coal-fired power plants that want to produce electricity here to buy pollution credits from plants that have reduced their mercury emissions.
The Idaho DEQ voted unanimously last year to opt out of the program, and former Gov. Jim Risch issued an executive order directing the agency to write the rule keeping Idaho out of the credit trading system.
"The executive order was to tell the DEQ to opt out of the cap and trade program," said Sen. Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum. "The Legislature gets a final look at it. They can vote to accept or reject it. They cannot amend it."
The subcommittee could postpone a vote on it if they have questions they need addressed. Or, they could vote to send it to the full committee for a vote.
"If they vote to reject the rule, it would go to the full House and be voted on," Stennett said. "Then it would come to the Senate."
Committees look at all rules written and proposed since the previous session. Rules are implementations of public policy, Stennett said. They can pertain to new laws, executive orders, or federal mandates.
"They will all go into effect unless they're rejected," he said, adding they have to be rejected by both the House and the Senate.
The issue will be heard first in the House Environment, Energy and Technology Committee and then the Senate Health & Welfare Committee.
Legislators have been debating power plant regulations since 2005 when San Diego-based Sempra Generation announced intentions to build a 600-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Jerome County. Such plants are one of many sources of mercury in the environment.
The Senate voted last year to approve a measure that would have requested the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality prepare a report assessing the nature and extent of mercury contamination in Idaho. It also recommended the DEQ keep Idaho's current mercury emission cap for coal-fired power plants at zero.
The resolution, co-sponsored in the House by Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, did not get out of committee.
"We passed a mercury resolution by a large margin, and the House wouldn't even vote on it," Stennett said this week. "I'm cautiously optimistic the Senate would not (reject the rule)."
Sen. Clint Stennett, D-Ketchum
