Apr. 11--Ways that federal climate-change proposals could affect Lebanon Utility customers will be discussed Monday at a Lebanon City Council meeting.

Some Democrats in Congress are pushing a bill that would reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 83 percent over the next 40 years.

But the bill would send electricity bills soaring, maintain representatives of power-producing trade organizations and utilities.

Lebanon is a member of and buys electricity from the Indiana Municipal Power Association. Officials of IMPA will be at the 7:30 p.m. council session to discuss the federal proposals.

Lebanon Utilities General Manager Mike Martin said earlier this month he doesn't dispute the need to reduce CO2 emissions to mitigate climate change, but with how those reductions are made.

President Barack Obama's 2010 budget calls for an "auction" of cap-and-trade permits or "allowances" -- essentially, licenses to emit CO2.

That auction could raise $650 billion, which would be used to develop alternative energy sources and help consumers pay higher utility bills.

IMPA supports a cap-and-trade system only if it includes a no-cost emission allocation system.

An auction of cap-and-trade permits could have an almost-immediate adverse impact on electric rates, Martin said. Nor has there been enough public discussion of the proposal, Martin said recently.

An allowance that would charge utilities $20 per ton of emitted CO2 would increase local utility bills by 20 percent over the next three years, Martin predicted. Further increases would follow, he said.

A lack of proven technology to remove CO2 is a factor in IMPA objections, Martin said.

Advocates of carbon emission limits say they could lead to technological innovations as well as more efficient ways of generating electrical power. For instance, a method used by the petroleum industry to extract more oil from aging fields could be employed to capture carbon, Scientific American reported on its Web site Thursday.

More than 10.8 trillion cubic feet of CO2 has been pumped into oil wells since 1972, in a technique that forces more oil out, according to the story by David Biello. The technique has resulted in an additional 650,000 barrels of oil a day, R. Tim Bradley of the oil services company Kinder Morgan told Biello.

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