US Senate Passes Energy Bill, House Talks Loom
Date: 29-Jun-05
Country: USA
Author: Chris Baltimore
The 1,250-page bill, which passed 85-12, still must be reconciled with an $8 billion energy package passed by the House of Representatives in April before a final version is sent to President George W. Bush.
Even as industry leaders and the White House offered kudos, knotty problems like the bill's pricetag and lawsuit protection for makers of a water-polluting fuel additive must be solved before Congress can deliver a bill for Bush to sign into law.
"I urge the House and Senate to resolve their differences quickly and get a good bill to my desk before the August recess," Bush said in a statement.
As US crude oil prices hit record highs above $60 earlier this week, US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman said the bill would do little in the near term to ease the pain for consumers.
"This is the first step on what will be a long road" toward more US domestic energy supplies, Bodman said.
The White House has called for $6.7 billion in tax incentives over a decade, and criticized incentives in the House bill for providing tax breaks for long-established techniques for oil and gas production.
The Senate bill extends billions of dollars in tax incentives to build new nuclear and cleaner coal-fired plants, as well as energy from solar, wind and other renewable sources.
It also encourages electric grid investment and sets higher reliability standards for utilities in a bid to avoid a repeat of the 2003 blackout that left 50 million people in the dark.
In a boon to Midwest farmers, the bill requires refiners to double use of corn-blended ethanol in gasoline to 8 billion gallons by 2012, versus 5 billion gallons in the House version.
Missing from the Senate plan are several contentious issues approved by the House.
Chief among them are a ban on product-defect lawsuits against makers of a water-polluting fuel additive called MTBE and allowing oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is a top White House priority.
House-Senate negotiations could be easier if congressional leaders place the lawsuit ban in a highway funding bill that Congress could consider this week. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay left the door open on Tuesday for that approach.
"We'll look at what the solution is. When we figure out where to put it, that's where we'll put it," DeLay told reporters.
Although Energy Committee Chairman Joe Barton has declined to comment, Democratic aides say Barton was eyeing the highway bill as the home for the MTBE provision.
Formally named methyl tertiary butyl ether, MTBE is a fuel additive like ethanol. For years, MTBE defenders have demanded liability protection for MTBE as the price for larger use of ethanol, a politically popular fuel.
The Senate bill doesn't give MTBE makers lawsuit protection, but gives them $1 billion in transition assistance to make other fuel additives.
US refiners began adding MTBE to gasoline in 1979 as an anti-knock agent that replaced lead, but MTBE has seeped into water supplies in all 50 states through leaky storage tanks, rendering the water undrinkable.
