The U.S. electrical industry can't see getting GHG emissions down below 1990 levels until some time in the 2020s.

An excerpt from the NYT story:

Electric power companies, which emit about one-third of America’s global warming gases, could reduce their emissions to below the levels of 1990, but that would take about 20 years, no matter how much the utilities spend, according to a new industry study.

The report, prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit consortium, is portrayed as highly optimistic by its authors, who will present the findings on Thursday at an energy conference in Houston.

It assumes that “money grows on trees and all research is successful,” said one of them, Bryan J. Hannegan. “This is as good as we think we can get, right now.”

Before joining the research institute last year, Dr. Hannegan, a climate scientist, worked as an environmental and economic adviser to the White House and on the Republican staff of the Senate Energy Committee, where he helped draft the 2005 energy bill.

His detailed new analysis comes as Democrats in Congress are promising to draft tough new targets for emissions of greenhouse gases, possibly including mandatory caps, which the Bush administration and industry groups have opposed in the past.