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]