As Congress moves to curb industrial pollution linked to global warming, top executives at TXU Corp. are trying to persuade federal lawmakers to support the company's plans to build 11 coal-fired power plants in East and Central Texas.
But officials deny that the Dallas-based energy company is pushing lawmakers to exempt the proposed plants from pending legislation that would mandate significant reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, potentially crippling TXU's building plan.
Mike McCall, head of TXU's wholesale electricity unit, traveled to Washington this week to meet with top congressional leaders, including Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and John Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Several pieces of legislation in both committees would mandate limits on carbon emissions. TXU's 11 power plants, as proposed, would discharge 78 million tons a year of carbon dioxide, the chief man-made contributor to climate change.
In addition to McCall, Gerry Pearson, the company's vice president of mining operations, sent an e-mail last week to several congressional leaders from Texas urging them to oppose creation of a federal panel that would work with the Energy Department to devise a national strategy to combat global warming.
A company spokeswoman said McCall and Pearson are not trying to hamper congressional efforts to improve air quality.
"Mr. McCall did travel to Washington, D.C. But his purpose was to meet with the new Democratic leadership and to basically walk them through the situation we're facing here in Texas and to brief them on TXU's program," said Kim Morgan, a TXU spokeswoman. "There really wasn't a lot of discussion on specific legislation."
As for Pearson's e-mail, Morgan said he sent that on behalf of the Texas Mining and Reclamation Association and was not acting as a representative of TXU.
"That's part of the beauty of a free society, where individuals can express their views and be very active and vocal," Morgan said.
Pearson's e-mail, however, was written on his corporate e-mail account, and he identified himself in it as a TXU executive.
The company's lobbying efforts angered U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, who received Pearson's e-mail.
"Undercutting efforts to control global warming, now TXU is turning the heat up on Congress," he said. "I will continue to oppose its efforts."
McCall's trip to Washington comes as public concerns about global climate change and man-made contributions to it continue to grow.
President Bush, in Tuesday's State of the Union address, called global warming a "serious challenge" that needs to be addressed. And a group of 10 major corporations this week joined environmentalists in urging Congress to enact legislation establishing national carbon-emission caps for the first time.
TXU officials insist that they are committed to clean air and say the new power plants will be among the cleanest coal-fired units ever built.
They point to the company's commitment to slash overall emissions by 20 percent in exchange for building the plants.
That 20 percent commitment does not include carbon emissions. TXU says the technology is not developed enough to be used in large power plants. Instead, the company is spending $2 billion to study technologies that could potentially capture the carbon before it is discharged through the smokestacks.
In addition to the Democratic leaders, McCall met this week with Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas.
Brian Walsh, a spokesman for Cornyn, said officials did not ask the senator to help exempt the proposed power plants from new legislation.
"I suspect that there are a lot of rumors being perpetuated by those who oppose efforts to strengthen America's domestic energy supply," Walsh said.
But any attempt to exempt the new plants from new federal regulation would be "absolutely the wrong thing to do if you're worried about global warming," said Dave Hawkins director of Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center.