Congress broke for August recess today without making any notable progress on energy issues -- as expected.
Despite multiple attempts in both the House and Senate to pass legislation that would curb oil-market speculation, release some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and extend tax credits for renewable energy, members of Congress will go home to their districts this weekend with nothing to tout.
House Republicans decided to protest the lack of movement on energy legislation by staying on the House floor to discuss energy issues after the body had been officially adjourned. As of the writing of this post, they were still kibitzing, though they kicked C-SPAN's camera crew out of the chamber. AP, which described the scene as "at times bizarre," reported that the Republicans invited tourists into the chamber and spent the afternoon making fun of Democrats who wouldn't take up their drilling-focused energy legislation. "I am prepared to stay here as long as we can," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), one of the leaders of the protest.
House Democrats were equally miffed at the Republicans, who blocked all energy bills because they didn't include more oil drilling.
In the Senate, the tax-credit extensions for renewable energy failed for an eighth time (despite having passed previously in the House). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) essentially deemed further haggling over energy legislation pointless, and declared debate "over until the fall." He chastised Republicans for giving "a big wet kiss to big oil companies" by obstructing Democratic bills.
After the Senate closed down today, a bipartisan group of 10 senators held a press conference on legislation they're cosponsoring in hopes of breaking the deadlock. The "New Energy Reform Act of 2008" combines limited offshore drilling with increased investment in new energy technologies, with the aim of reducing consumption of foreign oil. Some of the money for renewables would come from scaling back tax breaks for the oil industry. The bill also sets a goal of fueling 85 percent of the country's automobiles with something other than oil within 20 years.
The group, calling itself the "Gang of 10," includes five Democrats and five Republicans: Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), and John Thune (R-S.D.). They said they expect to hold debate on the bill when Congress reconvenes in the fall.
"When we come back in September we're very hopeful ... they will allow this bill to come forward," said Chambliss.
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Comments
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Wolverine Posted 9:36 am
01 Aug 2008
The gang of 10 bill looks awful and should be strongly opposed. Absolutely no offshore drilling! And replace oil with what, even more ecologically harmful biofuels? No thanks. And not a word about extending the credits for solar and wind? This is exactly what I'd expect from Republicans and right wing Democrats like these.
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edarnold41 Posted 4:12 am
04 Aug 2008
So much for 'Change we can believe in': partisan politics taken to the scorched earth level.
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greentiger Posted 5:40 am
05 Aug 2008
Senator Conrad's synopsis of the bill includes:
"Extending renewable energy, carbon mitigation and energy conservation and efficiency tax incentives, including the production tax credit, through 2012 to create greater certainty and spur greater investment"
I actually think the legislation is quite good in many respects, although I'm not a policy expert. The American people now want offshore drilling, I don't think you're going to see senators successfully oppose that wish in an election year, so you might as well accept it as a necessary compromise. Offshore drilling might not be great, but I think there are many worse things that may happen to the environment.
The bill is a bit pro-biofuels, but not inordinately so; rather it seems to favor batteries:
"$7.5 billion for R&D focused on the major technological barriers to alternative fuel vehicles, such as advanced batteries;
* $7.5 billion to help U.S. automakers and parts makers re-tool and re-equip to become the world leader in making alternative fuel vehicles;"
versus:
"* $2.5 billion in R,D&D on next generation biofuels and infrastructure;"
Feel free to keep holding out for something better, Wolverine, but I'd be pretty pleased to see something like this actually get passed before '09 rolls around.
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gordonrands Posted 1:15 am
07 Aug 2008
corn-based ethanol is not specifically mentioned; rather the focus here in the bill is advanced biofuels, presumably things such as biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol, and the funding is much less than for energy efficiency and for renewables
coal to liquid (CTL)fuel plants must utilize carbon sequestration technology that results in the synthetic fuel having lower GHG emissions than oil; this won't lead to significant GHG cuts, but it is better than previous funding proposals for CTL that I have heard about. Under an eventual cap-and-trade or (unlikely but probably preferable) carbon tax scheme I imagine that CTL will prove to be far too expensive to be viable. Should we therefore avoid funding it at all and direct all the R&D to renewables? Sure, but a "R&D funding for deep green approaches only" probably won't fly for the foreseeable future. If providing R&D dollars for neutral to light green R&D is the quid pro quo to extending and expanding funding for renewables, hybrids, etc., then it seems acceptable.
nuclear's treatment under the bill is the one that I'm actually most concerned about, as it is not very specific and could possibly significantly increase nuclear expansion. The funding for R&D to reduce spent nuclear fuel waste does not seem like a significant green benefit.
offshore oil drilling is, as greentiger observed, not as problematic in my opinion as some other issues. My impression is that over the last 30 years offshore oil rigs drilling operations have been relatively clean -- I may be wrong about this but its certainly been better than spills from tankers. If so, I'd far rather see increased offshore oil drilling than increased drilling in the Rocky Mountain west or any in ANWR. If there are demonstrable problems with offshore drilling, pipelines or tanker loading, then why not work with the bill's authors and ask them to address this?
The bill extends the renewable energy production tax credits to 2012, expands consumer tax credits for hybrids and for energy efficiency. As with any bill the devil is in the details, and the details may be far less positive than the press release suggests. If so, I'd like to hear about these, and how they could be improved.
While the sponsors are conservative Democrats and fairly (but not extremely) conservative Republicans, liberal Democrats (and the two or three moderate Republicans who still exist) don't and won't in 2009 have enough votes to pass good legislation on their own. A bipartisan approach is eventually needed to address energy and environmental issues. It seems to me that extension of renewable energy production tax credits is so important, and a compromise of some sort is likely needed to get this done, that this bill is worth seeking to improve, rather than flat out opposing.
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