The Energy Minefield on Capitol Hill

[jpak]

http://www.renewableaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=50352

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi left the White House in no doubt about where her priorities lie on the much-debated 2007 Energy Bill, according to the weekly newsletter of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). In response to a letter from the President's Assistant for Economic Policy, Allan Hubbard, that threatened a veto of any bill that offended the Bush Administration's sensibilities, Pelosi responded succinctly that she intended to present a bill that was good for the American people.

Blunt talk is perhaps the Speaker's only way of negotiating the minefield that the Energy Bill now resembles. The bill is now in its 'conference committee' stage, where differences between House and Senate versions are supposed to be ironed out.

The Senate version of the bill actually started life in the House as a revenue bill (HR6); it was taken up and passed by the Senate stripped of its tax title but including such measures as renewable fuel standards, minimum fuel economy standards for automobiles, and an anti-price gouging section.

The House, kept in session by Speaker Pelosi into the first weekend of its August recess so as to pass their version (HR3221), finally passed a bill containing a 15% Federal Renewable Portfolio Standard, production incentives for biofuels, tax incentives for energy efficiency measures, funding for geothermal and solar R&D and a tightening of tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.

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