Every single human being in Wisconsin draws upon and benefits from electric energy production. From birth itself each of us is blessed with a safer and more comfortable world because of the ready availability of affordable electric energy. Unfortunately, the vast benefits of electricity are not without costs, especially environmental costs.

Wisconsin's producers (and consumers) of electric energy are the primary source of many of Wisconsin's most vexing air pollution problems including almost one third of global warming emissions, two thirds of acid rain emission, two thirds of nitrogen oxides, a main ingredient in ground-level ozone. Coal-fired power plants are also a primary source of airborne mercury, which has contaminated state fish and wildlife.

The extraction, transportation and storage of fossil fuels also results in disruption of natural environments, accidental spills and runoff contamination. Ash residues of fuels can be highly toxic and present a disposal problem. Transmission line construction has fragmented many pristine forest, wetland and upland habitats, threatening many of Wisconsin's best loved wildlife species.

The bleak environmental picture of Wisconsin's electric energy use is largely a product of the vast quantity of electric energy produced and consumed here, but is also affected greatly by decisions that have been made about how to produce, transport and use electric energy. We can be proud of a strong effort on the part of utility companies, regulators and citizens in Wisconsin to minimize the impacts associated with electric energy use through careful planning and efforts at efficiency, conservation and development of clean renewable energy resources. In Wisconsin, this effort is the product of debate and collaboration among these key stakeholders and others. But we must recognize that we have only begun to establish an energy production/consumption system that will be sustainable through the 21st century.

Today, some utility companies are advocating a much reduced role for state regulators and the public in protecting the environment from the impacts of electric energy production. Their proposal would greatly diminish or eliminate long term planning processes before the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. These processes now give the public a role in determining how many power plants are needed, which fuels will be used, how much conservation and efficiency work to perform, and how to develop alternative fuels and programs. Broad-based public review of power plant construction proposals would cease. Most of these decisions would be made exclusively by utility managers based on the demands of the free market. The electric utility companies proposing this deregulation or "restructuring" claim that free market forces will be adequate to protect the environment. Opponents of the plan maintain that the failure of free market forces to protect the environment was one of the key reasons Wisconsin began regulating electric utilities over 80 years ago.

Join us for a balanced and thorough examination of the issue. We have invited national and state experts on the environmental implications of utility deregulation to present their perspectives and stimulate discussion of the issue. We hope that this discussion will help to inform the legislative debate.

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