Posted on 07/27/2005 4:48:36 PM PDT by Indy Pendance
Congressional negotiators resolved their remaining differences on Tuesday over the energy bill, paving the way for a vote on the long-awaited legislation before the end of the week.
Lawmakers removed controversial provisions that helped to sink previous efforts at energy reform in the first term of President George W. Bush. The bill no longer offers legal immunity to producers of MTBE--a gasoline additive that contaminated ground water. Nor does it grant permission for drilling for oil and natural gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
With these stumbling blocks removed, the bill is expected to win approval from lawmakers. But energy experts and environmental groups expressed disappointment that the bill had been stripped of provisions intended to rein in consumption of fossil fuels and reduce dependence on imported oil.
The Senate had passed measures urging Mr Bush to cut the US consumption of oil by 1m barrels a day and requiring utility companies to produce 10 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources.
House of Representatives negotiators, led by Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, succeeded in killing these measures.
Announcing the end of the conference process, Congressman Barton said that the bill would “come to be seen as the rebirth of clean energy in America”. He stressed incentives in the bill to invest in clean coal and nuclear generation along with fresh funds for research into hydrogen.
He defended additional incentives to drill for oil and natural gas which have been attacked as unnecessary at a time of such high oil prices saying that as exploration became more difficult it was “only fair” to increase credits.
However, Bill Prindle, deputy director of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, said the remaining provisions of the energy bill would do almost nothing to reduce import dependence, one of the main goals of the administration.
“The oil-exporting countries are in the driving seat on US energy policy and we are giving them the keys,” he said.
“It is a great shame that they are not addressing the most visible energy problem, and the one with the strongest geopolitical implications.”
Although the bill contained no provision for drilling in ANWR, the Senate leadership plans to pass this provision instead through a budget resolution bill a process that would prevent Democrats from using a filibuster to block the plan.
The divisive issue of MTBE, by contrast, will not be taken up in another bill, Congressman Barton said on Tuesday.
He had proposed a clean-up fund, with a mix of money from the industry and taxpayers. He has now agreed to drop the issue but he warned that it might be some time before the clean-up would begin.
bump for nuke power
ANY new drilling for our own oil????? Sheeeze
They need to get rid of the extension of DST.
Bump for windpower.
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