Forwarded from the Club's Energy listserve:

Energy Bill Update

This week, the Senate effectively finished consideration of the energy
bill.  While the vote on final passage is not until next Tuesday morning,
there will be no further votes on amendments.  Sadly, the Senate energy
bill is a step backward that fails to solve America's energy problems.
Instead of demonstrating political leadership, the Senate passed another
tired energy bill that does nothing to lower our dependence on oil, funnels
billions of taxpayer dollars to polluting energy industries, and opens up
our coastlines to destructive oil and gas activities, and fails to address
global warming.   The Senate completely failed to give America what it
needs -- real solutions.

When this bill goes to conference with the even-worse House version, we
will again see a flawed policy written by and for the energy industry.

While the Senate took some steps forward, such as the inclusion of a
Renewable Energy Standard that requires utilities to produce 10% of their
electricity with renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and geothermal
as well as some good energy efficiency provisions in the tax title, these
modest step forward are overshadowed by the larger failure of the bill.

Here are the major votes that took place over the past week.

Coastal Oil and Gas Inventory:
The Senate rejected an effort to remove a provision in the bill that open
up the decades old moratorium on oil and gas activities along the Outer
Continental Shelf to allow an oil and gas inventory.  This harmful
inventory will harm marine life and is the first step towards opening up
our coasts to oil and gas drilling.  The Nelson-Martinez amendment failed
44-52.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=109&session=1&vote=00143

Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Terminals:
Senator Feinstein offered an amendment to give states equal say when siting
onshore LNG terminals.  The current bill gives exclusive authority to the
federal government through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
A motion to table the Feinstein amendment passed 52-45
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=109&session=1&vote=00146

Global Warming
The Senate had an extensive debate on global warming.  The Senate first
adopted an amendment by Sen. Hagel and Sen. Pryor that pretended to address
global warming by providing tax credits and loan guarantees to new nuclear
power plants and IGCC coal plants.

The Senate then moved into a debate on the McCain-Lieberman amendment which
would have capped U.S. emissions at 2000 levels by 2010.  Unfortunately,
McCain and Lieberman added extensive provisions to include nuclear power as
one of the ways to reduce emissions, making it so that the Sierra Club
could no longer support their amendment.  They inserted this language in an
effort to get additional votes.  They did not pick up new votes and lost
old supporters who could not support the nuclear provisions.   The
amendment lost 38-60.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=109&session=1&vote=00148

The final global warming vote was on a resolution introduced by Sen.
Bingaman that was a sense of the Senate that global warming is real, that
is it human-induced, and that sometime this Congress the Senate should pass
mandatory carbon caps.  Obviously, this is not enforceable, but it is
significant that the Senate went on record acknowledging the scientific
consensus of global warming.  Sadly, this no-brainer is a step forward in
the US Congress.  The Bingaman resolution survived a motion to table with
53 Senators supporting the resolution.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=109&session=1&vote=00149

Cloture Vote 92-4
In a chaotic floor vote, the Senate agreed Thursday morning to invoke
cloture and bring the bill to a final vote within 30 hours of debate.  The
cloture petition passed 92-4.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=109&session=1&vote=00152

Fuel Economy
The last votes of the debate came on fuel economy.  Once again, the Senate
sided with the auto industry and failed to take the steps to cut America's
oil dependence and curb global warming.

An amendment by Sen. Levin and Sen. Bond to weaken the CAFE program and
make it harder to set future standards passed 64-31
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=109&session=1&vote=00156

This was followed by an amendment from Sen. Durbin to raise CAFE standards
to 40 miles per gallon by 2017, which lost 28-67.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm
?congress=109&session=1&vote=00157

Brendan Bell
Associate Washington Representative
Sierra Club Global Warming & Energy Program

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to:
[log in to unmask]