Draft Sixth Power Plan Comment

To the Northwest Power and Conservation Council: Your work is appreciated, but not finished. The plan needs to go further. The million-ton elephant in the council’s room is coal, which produces 23 percent of the region’s electricity but spews out 87 percent of the region’s pollution. The draft plan, admirably aggressive in its pursuit of energy efficiency and renewable-energy targets, sidesteps the region’s coal use, neither advocating cap-and-trade (carbon tax) policies or CO2 reduction targets that are already on the books in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. It's time we cut our ties with coal. Simply put, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s very good draft could become a great plan. It can build on its already-solid foundation of efficiency and clean energy and build toward a low-carbon energy future that will meet growing need while shrinking its impact on the environment. I appreciate your efforts on energy efficiency and focus on renewables, but would like to see those efforts fortified with a reduction in greenhouse emissions. Thank you, Janet Nash