Congress: Short of energy

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: For the second year in a row, Congress is trying to put together a bill aimed at creating a coherent national energy policy. And for the second year in a row, the proposed legislation has fallen far short of what's needed. If there are no substantial changes to an energy bill approved earlier by the House and another bill being debated in the Senate this week, it would be better if energy legislation, for the second year in a row, died a quiet and ignoble death in the current congressional session.
Practically speaking, a national policy that seeks energy independence will require some negative impact on the nation's natural resources and will do a few things that some won't like. More drilling for oil and natural gas will have to take place somewhere. Coal will have to be part of the mix. Whether to build more nuclear power plants deserves at least to be seriously debated.
The bills on the table do all of that and more; in fact, they do too much more by pushing for exploitation above all other options. What the bills don't do, just as last year's bills didn't, is give enough weight to two other necessary elements of the energy equation: conservation and alternative sources.
Renewable resources
Among other things, the Senate bill contains no requirement that utilities generate a portion of their electricity from renewable resources, as last year's bill did; makes stricter fuel economy standards more difficult for the Department of Transportation to set; and provides only about $5 billion in tax subsidies for conservation, renewable sources and energy efficiency while providing $10 billion in tax subsidies for the rest of the energy industry.
Other bad things
The bill does other bad things, too: It extends a provision that gives automakers fuel economy credits for producing vehicles capable of running on ethanol, even though the DOT found that 99 percent of such vehicles never do run on the stuff; it exempts energy projects on Indian lands from environmental review; it reduces royalty payments from the gas and oil industry to the federal and state governments.
And the legislation repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, which, when it is properly enforced, should provide customers with protection against the kind of electricity market manipulation that gave the nation Enron and California's manufactured energy crisis.