Washington Post

A Better Energy Bill

Monday, March 11, 2002; Page A20

AS THE SENATE opened debate on an energy bill last week, the White House
fired a shot across its bow. The bill on the Senate floor is not
comprehensive energy legislation, said the Office of Management and Budget,
because it doesn't do enough to increase domestic oil production, failing in
particular to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling. The
administration opposes the higher automobile fuel efficiency standards that
are in the bill, and it objects to a provision that would require facilities
that emit large quantities of greenhouse gases to register those emissions.
The administration is right that the House and Senate are heading in
different directions, but it's wrong on the relative merits. The
pro-conservation tilt of the Senate bill makes it the better measure.

It's possible neither version will become law. While all sides agree on
substantial sections of the legislation, divisions over Arctic drilling and
fuel economy are deep. Even if the Senate can pass a bill, it is likely to
be so different from the House version that a conference committee will have
trouble bridging the gaps. The issues that were driving debate when
President Bush put his energy plan together last year have faded: Prices for
oil and natural gas are down, and California no longer is suffering from
rolling blackouts. Since Sept. 11 the rallying cry is national security. But
it's worth remembering that both drilling in Alaska and auto fuel efficiency
standards would take years to bear fruit. And neither the House bill nor the
measure now before the Senate would make the country energy independent.
Imported oil now provides 57 percent of U.S. needs; left unchecked, imports
are expected to make up two-thirds of consumption by 2020. The energy
measures aim to reverse that trend, but the best either side predicts from
the range of measures in either bill is to bring imports back under 50
percent of consumption, not eliminate them. As long as the economy and most
modes of transportation rely on oil, America will remain economically tied
to the world oil market.

But it makes ecological sense to reduce dependence on oil, foreign or
domestic, and on other fossil fuels, so there's merit in the Senate bill's
emphasis on conservation, new technology and new sources of energy. Raising
auto fuel efficiency standards, unchanged since 1985, would help. So would
the bill's proposed tougher efficiency standards for new air conditioners
and its demand that, by 2020, 10 percent of electricity come from renewable
sources; several states already have used this kind of requirement to boost
generation from wind and other renewable sources. As debate opened
Wednesday, Alaska's Sen. Frank Murkowski broadly described these initiatives
as an "unacceptable intrusion of the federal government into the
marketplace." But they're no more of an intrusion than the Republicans' tax
breaks for drilling. The difference, as Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman
(D-N.M.) said, is that his bill's incentives seek to bring about change that
wouldn't occur otherwise. The Republican-favored approach renders more
profitable activity that likely would take place anyway, or (as in the case
of Alaska) encourages activity that we'd be better off without.

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