08-06-07 by dugan
After much public brouhaha, the House and Senate versions of the energy bill are headed to the much more private place where the real bill will be written: a House-Senate conference committee. We never doubted that the federal energy bill would end as a product of a conference committee, with its horse-trading, compromises–and mischief. What’s disturbing, though, is that the two versions going into commettee don’t agree on any of the big changes to energy policy.
The differences that must be worked out are over the guts of the bill:
Oil Tax Breaks.
The House bill would delete about $17 billion in oil industry tax benefits to pay for renewable fuel development and conservation projects. The Senate voted down that plan, calling for the renewables but without a funding source.
Auto efficiency.
The Senate bill calls for long-overdue and modest increase in federal auto efficiency standards. The House, where the auto industry virtually owns Energy Committee head John Dingell, killed a similar plan.
Green Power
The House bill demands that power utilities generate 15% of their power from renewable sources including sun and wind by 2020. No such thing in the Senate version.
The House bill also calls for increased use of efficient light bulbs, higher efficiency for home appliances and breaks for buyers of hybrid vehicles. It even cancels the ludicrous "Hummer loophole," under which "business" buyers of the biggest, most gas-guzzling SUVs get a fat tax break (real estate agents and accountants included). The sum is a welcome recognition that conservation and renewable energy do far more for energy independence than digging more coal and drilling for more oil.
This assortment of small, beneficial changes unfortunately look like trading cards to me. As in: "Cut back those auto efficiency standards and we’ll give you the clean light bulbs."
Conference committees, behind closed doors, are also where the pork trough is planted. Think of Alaska’s "bridge to nowhere."
Putting this in perspective, both the House and Senate measures are a far cry from the 2005 energy bill, which added more tax breaks for oil companies, scarcely gave lip service to renewables and failed even to require more energy-efficient appliances.
The two 2007 bills are a big jigsaw puzzle now. The lack of agreement between the House and Senate versions makes it all too likely that the biggest, most important pieces of a final version will be compromised in every sense of the word.
There’s also the veto threat. Congress caved to President Bush in passing broad expansions of federal eavesdropping laws. Bush will try the same thing with the energy bill, but will have a harder time playing the terrorism card.
We think Americans will understand that a feeble bill is worse than no bill at all, because it turns Congress into oilman Bush’s pawn. Congress should at least force him to take out his pen and say he won’t accept changes that most Americans clearly want.