Oct. 12--The chief executive of Exelon Corp., the energy giant that withdrew from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently over a disagreement on climate legislation, said today that the prospects for a bill to limit greenhouse-gas emissions have improved dramatically in recent days.

John W. Rowe, whose company owns Peco Energy Co., the Philadelphia electric and gas utility, said that Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham's announcement on Sunday to break ranks with his party to support climate legislation "is just a dreadfully important opening."

Rowe, whose company stands to benefit from a climate bill because of its big investment in emission-free nuclear reactors, said he is optimistic that Congress will take up the legislation this year or early next year.

Rowe spoke in a telephone interview this afternoon from Exelon's headquarters in Chicago ahead of a scheduled appearance tonight in Montgomery County at a global-warming conference sponsored by Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future, or PennFuture.

Rowe reacted to an opinion article that Graham, of South Carolina, and Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.) had coauthored in the New York Times to say there is room for bipartisan compromise on climate legislation.

Rowe said the article "definitely suggests that there's still a possibility of passage this year," though he believes Congress is more likely to take up the debate in the first three months of 2010.

"It's not terribly important if it's the fourth quarter or the first quarter, what's important is that Congress act on it," he said.

Rowe and Exelon were in the news recently when the company withdrew from the Chamber of Commerce after the trade group took a strong position against climate-control legislation.

Rowe said that Exelon had worked for more than a decade to reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions, and said the reaction to the chamber pullout was "relatively small beer."

"Nonetheless, we did it because on this issue, which we think is fundamental to the ecology, the economy and to Exelon, we were at odds with the expressed position of the chamber," he said. "But there's no malice in it."

Rowe will be the headline speaker at the PennFuture global climate conference at 7:30 p.m. today in the Gorson-Fishman-Tobin Auditoriums at Har Zion Temple, 1500 Hagys Ford Rd., Penn Valley.

For information on the event, contact PennFuture at 717-214-7920 or at www.pennfuture.org/events.

-----

To see more of The Philadelphia Inquirer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.philly.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

EXC, NYT,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.