Dropping the Ball On Energy

Dropping the Ball On Energy

July 27, 2005

Legislators from both sides of the aisle agreed that our nation needed a good comprehensive energy bill.  And after four years of negotiations, Congress reached an agreement on a bill.  Unfortunately, despite all the negotiations, it's still a really bad bill.  The bill agreed on by House and Senate negotiators doesn't do three key things a good energy bill would: reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, spend taxpayer dollars wisely and respect the environment.    Even though this legislation is clearly lacking, it is expected to pass anyway; no surprise given that oil and utility companies have $367 million over the last two years lobbying Congress.

• This energy bill is a big giveaway to the oil and utility industries and does nothing to decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  The final bill rejected a Senate provision that required the reduction of oil consumption by one million barrels per day by 2015.  The final legislation also dropped a provision that would have required utilities "to generate at least 10 percent of their electricity through renewable fuels by 2020."  In addition, the bill gave the electricity, coal, nuclear, natural gas and oil industries an $8.5 billion tax break and billions more in loan guarantees and other subsidies.
  
  
• The environment takes a serious hit with this bill.  The energy bill contains provisions that will wreak havoc on the environment, including loopholes in the Clean Water Act that allows industries to ignore regulations designed to limit erosion and runoff into rivers and streams.  The bill also, like the Bush administration, ignores global warming.  The final version "contains no substantive provisions to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming."  The conferees even stripped out a Senate provision that acknowledged the threat of climate change.
  
  
• There are two good things about this bill but it is not enough to make it good energy policy.  The good news about the bill is that it does not include provisions that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to drilling (although Congressional leaders are still pursuing this through the filibuster-proof budget process) or shield companies that contaminate groundwater with the toxic chemical MTBE from legal liability.  But America deserves more than an energy policy that just happens to excludes two regressive policies.  Even with Arctic Refuge drilling and MTBE out, it's "a bill that only industry executives and lobbyists could love."