Duke Energy's Rogers touts carbon proposal (Charlotte)

Having spent much of the week lobbying for bipartisan legislation on carbon emissions, Jim Rogers sees promising signs for a compromise.

But the Duke Energy Corp. chief executive fears carbon regulation will become a dead issue until 2013 if Congress doesn’t act on that compromise by the November elections.

“For a person in my position, who wants the road map (on carbon), who needs to provide the solutions, I think (inaction is) the wrong answer,” Rogers told an audience at UNC Chapel Hill on Tuesday night.

U.S. Sens. Lindsay Graham, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman — a Republican, a Democrat and an independent — are expected to unveil their proposed climate bill Monday. It is meant to replace the bill the House approved last summer.

The new proposal is expected to set a price on carbon by using a trimmed-down cap-and-trade system. It would be phased in more gradually than the House measure. And it’s expected to include more incentives than the House bill for developing nuclear power and drilling for domestic oil and gas reserves.

Read the full story in the Charlotte Business Journal.