Maybe the Republicans will stay there long enough to starve?  And maybe the Democrats will all get fatally infected from the bodies when they return?  Then the Greens take over!  Well, I can dream.

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.

Face it, the Democrats, led by Nancy "Bush is a Failure because I say So" Pelosi, will let America freeze in the dark this winter rather than let a Republican president have any credit for starting to create a real emergy policy for the country. It has to be THEIR policy, signed by THEIR Messiah, or nothing.

So much for 'Change we can believe in': partisan politics taken to the scorched earth level.

Maybe you shoulda read the link.

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.

I'm not a policy expert, but I think that greentiger's comments are well taken.  While I'm certainly opposed to corn-based ethanol, coal to liquid fuels, nuclear energy and offshore drilling, the bill's treatment of these seems within the scope of reason, according to the summary in Senator Conrad's press release.

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.