Maybe I was the only person who thought of Halloween Wednesday morning at the Batesville Exchange Club meeting when Tallahatchie Valley Electric Power Association Manager of Communications Marlin Williams spoke.

Williams described a scary scenario facing electrical consumers if the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill now before the Senate becomes law. A typical residential TVEPA customer might expect his bill to rise $125 to $400 monthly if the bill becomes law as it is now written, Williams said.

The bill — the American Clean Energy and Security Act — is designed to reduce greenhouse gases and to address climate change. But it will penalize the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) since TVA generates about 70 percent of its electricity from coal, Williams said.

The idea is “if we make it (coal) so expensive, then people won’t use it as much,” Williams said. The trouble is that, “Coal is the most affordable way to produce electricity,” he said.

About 70 percent of TVA’s electricity is generated by coal-fueled plants, Williams said, with 20 percent coming from nuclear generation and 10 percent generated by hydroelectric sources.

The “not-in-my-backyard” factor arises almost anywhere in this country with any attempt to build new generating capacity using any of those sources, said Williams.

“The United States is really bogged down in its generation,” said TVEPA Director of Finance Jim Vinson, who also spoke at the Exchange meeting. ”TVA has probably built the last dam it’s going to,” he added. He said it takes 20 years from the first inception of a new power plant until the plant is producing electricity.

(Meanwhile, China is completing about one new coal-fueled electricity generating plant per month, the TVEPA officials said.)

Williams cited surveys that show that 97 percent of Americans support the clean energy that is the goal of the Waxman-Markey bill. Yet 72 percent of those surveyed said they would not support paying one additional dollar on their electricity bill to pay for clean energy.

“We were for it as a nation until we find out it is going to cost us,” he said.

Williams further faulted the Waxman-Markey bill for using funds generated through its “cap and trade” features for expenditures not directly related to more efficient energy production.

“Given all the coal-fired plants in China, what difference will it make what we do?” asked Exchange member Dr. Dick Corson.

“Minimal. We don’t know and we won’t know for years,” Williams replied.

“We know there has to be a better way,” the TVEPA manager of communications continued, referring to extensive research into more efficient and cleaner generation of electricity by TVA and other industry leaders.

Debate over the health care bill has stalled and overshadowed the energy bill, Williams said, giving power interests an opportunity to mobilize against the bill.

They are joined in opposition to the bill by the American Petroleum Institute, the Heritage Foundation, economist Arnold King, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, according to online sources, including Wikipedia.

The Congressional Budget Office has indicated that the bill would be deficit-neutral for the government over the next decade.

Supporters of the bill include the National Wildlife Federation, the Nature Conservacy, the Audubon Society and the Sierra Club. Also endorsing the Waxman-Markey bill are “Republicans for Environmental Protection,” General Electric, Dow Chemical, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, among others.

Williams said that during Tallahatchie Valley’s early years, electricity was viewed as something of a luxury and said that the new energy legislation is “trying to go back. It’s definitely a necessity in our lives,” he said.

And during those early years in the last century TVA, Tallahatchie Valley and every provider of consumer electricity spent most of their marketing efforts to convince us to use more and more of their power.