State Senate backs `carbon credits' bill

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Mar 23, 2001 by Marie Price The Journal Record

A measure passed Thursday by an Oklahoma Senate committee will allow Oklahoma farms and other businesses to address the global warming problem by removing excess carbon from the atmosphere by trading in "carbon credits."

Sen. Bruce Price, D-Hinton, Senate author of House Bill 1192, the "Oklahoma Carbon Sequestration Act," said that green plants emit oxygen while storing elemental carbon in their root systems and the soil. He said these plants also remove carbon dioxide from the air.

"Some industries emit carbon," said Price. "Some are involved in taking it out of the air."

Price told Sen. Owen Laughlin, R-Woodward, that the bill, authored in the House by Rep. Clay Pope, D-Loyal, would lay the groundwork for an eventual system of payments to state farmers for undertaking activities that help reduce atmospheric CO2.

An amendment would expand the bill's Carbon Sequestration Advisory Committee to include one member from an agri-business involved in trading with farmers and ranchers. Another change deletes a requirement that the Department of Environmental Quality submit a report to the Legislature on the potential for development of a carbon credit-trading system.

Price said that Canada has already developed such a system.

Price told the Senate Energy, Environmental Resources and Regulatory Affairs Committee that the United States appears to be in "pretty good shape" because it has retained much of its forests and other vegetation-covered areas. However, he said other countries have cut down a lot of their forested land and left nothing but bare ground.

"I think that at some time we'll have to do something to help regulate excess carbon dioxide," Price said.

Two other bills approved by the committee involve emergency 911 service.

House Bill 1152, by Rep. Darrell Gilbert, D-Tulsa, and Sen. Ben Robinson, D-Muskogee, would authorize the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to levy a fine of up to $500 per day against any local telephone service provider that does not comply with state law requiring such firms to make emergency telephone service available to customers.

Robinson said that many local service providers provide the service as required, but that a few may need the incentive of a daily fine to encourage them to comply.

The other measure, House Bill 1691 by Rep. James H. Dunegan, D- Calera, and Sen. Johnnie Crutchfield, D-Ardmore, would allow counties to approve a 50-cent monthly charge on cellular phone services to establish a 911 system. The county-option proposal would require a vote of county residents.

Gregory Harrison, representing AT&T Wireless, said that currently there is no way for counties to finance a 911 emergency system that picks up cell-phone locations.

Currently, he said, if an individual makes an emergency call from a cell phone, it is routed back to the caller's home area, not the local emergency service. "Once this goes across the state, they'll be able to pick you up where you are," said Harrison.

Committee members also passed House Bill 1300, by Rep. Jack Bonny, D-Burns Flat, and Robinson, which would require telephone companies to notify customers at least 30 days in advance of any rate increase.