The Daily Southerner, Tarboro, NC

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  • Kimberly Bellamy

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April 10, 2009

Burr: Current energy proposals ‘on the wrong track’

T. J. ROYAL

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., told the Tarboro Rotary Club Thursday about his ideas for energy policy in this year's national budget.

Burr is one of 23 members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and while he said he shares President Barack Obama's feelings that energy policy needs to be changed, he feels "we've sort of gotten on the wrong track" with the current proposals.

In particular, Burr took issue with a proposal to levy a new carbon tax on utilities, which he said would increase electricity bills for residents between $2,400 and $3,000 each year, raising $2 trillion for the federal government over the next 10 years.

"Putting another obligation" on families all over the country, Burr said, "is not smart in and of itself ... is not fair" to help pay down a growing deficit.

Tarboro Town Manager Sam Noble said after the meeting that the carbon tax would "directly affect" Tarboro's municipal finances. Since the town owns a 17 percent interest in the Roxboro-Mayo coal plants, having a carbon tax, and a resulting fee increase, would be "hitting all of our ratepayers' pocket books," Noble said.

A proponent of increased domestic oil drilling, Burr added, though, that he supports expansion of renewable energy resource efforts, as well as greater efforts to conserve energy.

"There's no silver bullet, no one thing, (and) it will take all of those things" to bring the United States to energy independence, Burr said. For North Carolina, he said that renewable resources, "some (that) haven't been talked about yet," could benefit the state if they are implemented further.

If a breakthrough that allowed canola seed to be grown during the winter could be developed, with it grown on a rotating basis with soybeans, Burr said it "would give (North Carolina) a tremendous option, being an agricultural state" to produce renewable resources.

Though he is against the carbon tax proposal, Burr said that he shares with Obama that energy policy, along with education and healthcare policy, must be reformed.

If Obama's policies prevail, Burr told the Tarboro Rotarians "I pray that it'll work," even when he comes up with "10 different reasons why it won't work."

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