The Senate adopted several climate-related amendments last night before passing a major energy bill that would boost auto efficiency standards and require a roughly five-fold increase in the use of biofuels.
The final amendment package that cleared the Senate without objection includes provisions that call for research into abrupt climate change and curbing emissions from the power plant that serves Capitol Hill.
Senators voted 65-27 for the final bill, with 20 Republicans siding with Democrats to pass the measure. Four Democrats opposed it. Beyond the vehicle mileage and biofuels increases, The bill would also create new laws against gasoline "price gouging," boost appliance and lighting efficiency, further carbon sequestration testing, and seek to stimulate production of advanced technology cars.
Last night's passage came only after a close 62-32 vote to invoke cloture and cut off debate, which requires 60 votes to succeed. An agreement on the fuel economy plan earlier in the day helped clear the way, with the Senate now on record in favor of increasing corporate average fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 (see related story).
The underlying bill would create an expanded ethanol mandate to reach 36 billion gallons by 2022, 21 billion of which must be met with "advanced" biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol. The current renewable fuels standard targets 7.5 billion gallons in 2012.
Democrats were forced to drop two major proposals during the debate. They could not muster enough support for requiring utilities to provide 15 percent of their electric power from renewable sources by 2020, and the plan never came up for a vote. And senators did not agree to cloture on an energy tax package that would have created $28.5 billion in incentives for renewable power, biofuels, plug-in hybrids, clean coal and other technologies.
The incentives would have been funded through new taxes on oil companies. The tax plan failed 57-36, as 60 votes were needed to move forward. The vote provided a major victory for oil producers who lobbied against it and argued the measure would stymie investment in domestic oil and gas production.
Immediately after last night's vote, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said he would continue seeking to move an energy tax plan. "I voted yes tonight on the energy bill, but the job is only partway done," he said in a prepared statement.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) yesterday told reporters he hopes to revive the tax plans and the renewable electricity standard at some point, though it is not clear how he would approach either. He took to the Senate floor before last night's cloture vote to assuage GOP concerns that Democrats are maneuvering to add the tax package in conference with the House.
"If anyone is concerned about some trick to put this energy tax package in the bill in conference, they need to tell me how to do it, because I don't know how," said Reid, noting it takes multiple cloture votes just to get to conference.
The White House has said it would consider a veto over two provisions. One is language that would create civil and criminal penalties for price gouging during emergencies declared by the president. The other is the "NOPEC" provision -- which was adopted as an amendment -- that authorizes the Justice Department to bring antitrust actions against OPEC nations in U.S. courts.
Beyond big-ticket items like CAFE and price gouging, the bill addresses a host of other issues. A major goal is conserving electric power through tougher appliance efficiency standards and several other steps.
Various provisions would codify consensus standards for appliances including residential gas, oil and electric boilers; boost programs for increased use of efficient lighting technologies; reauthorize weatherization assistance programs; mandate a reduction in energy consumption at federal buildings; and increase federal renewable energy purchases.
On the transportation side, the bill includes loan guarantees for plants that make fuel efficient vehicles and their parts. It would also provide grants to automakers to help pay for retooling plants for the manufacture of advanced technology vehicles.
Elsewhere, the bill would require an inventory of potential U.S. areas for storing CO2 in deep underground geologic features and other natural basins, and it would authorize the Energy Department to conduct at least seven large-scale tests for carbon sequestration.
The Senate agreed to over two dozen other amendments shortly before passing the bill. Included among them: A plan to better coordinate planned industry refinery outages to prevent supply constraints, and a modified sulfur removal standard to ensure projects using western coal can receive federal "clean coal" program funding.
Another amendment would create and authorize funding for a national research program into wave and other emerging ocean energy sources. Still another would authorize "transitional assistance" payments to farmers who begin producing crops for cellulosic ethanol.
Other amendments aim to develop and demonstrate "smart grid" technologies to reduce power demand; increase federal support for helping small businesses increase energy efficiency; and assess offshore wind potential in the eastern United States.
Environmentalists say they will keep pressing for a renewable electricity standard in both chambers. Marchant Wentworth of the Union of Concerned Scientists yesterday said he expects an attempt to add a renewable mandate when the full House Energy and Commerce Committee marks up energy legislation next week.
He also said he expects Reid and Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) will continue seeking a vehicle for a renewable standard. "We still anticipate some kind of action in the Senate," he said. "This is supported by a majority of the Senate. We want an up-or-down vote."
Senate Democrats opted not to spend their time on the floor debating a pair of controversial climate change measures, including an amendment from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) that would have established a mandatory greenhouse gas registry.
Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho) threatened to filibuster Klobuchar's proposal, forcing her to find 60 votes to get it included in the resolution. And while Klobuchar said she was building support for her amendment, the Senate parliamentarian ruled it did not belong in the energy bill.
Klobuchar did get some relief on the issue when Senate appropriators agreed yesterday to include $2 million in U.S. EPA's fiscal 2008 spending bill requiring the agency to develop a registry rule by the end of next year. "It shows this will have another life," she said.
Democrats also did not push for a vote on a Sense of the Senate resolution from Sens. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) urging President Bush to take a more active role in international climate change negotiations. Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic presidential candidate, told Greenwire last week he thought he had the votes to attach his resolution to the energy bill.
But Inhofe objected to Biden's resolution, forcing Reid to decide against prolonging the energy debate to take up this and other issues.
"Events have unfolded that make it obsolete," said one aide to the Oklahoma Republican, referring to the Group of Eight statement and Bush's plan to host a summit of the world's 15 largest polluters in the fall. Inhofe had prepared an alternative resolution that focused more heavily on the role of emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil.
The Senate accepted by unanimous consent several provisions aimed at addressing climate change.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) included an amendment that would authorize $50 million over five years to the Commerce Department for research into abrupt climate change.
Collins amendment deals with concerns over fast-moving changes to the Earth's climate resulting from the ongoing buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Specifically, she has mentioned the "redistribution of atmospheric moisture and rainfall, with substantial impact on the world's food supplies."
Under Collins' amendment, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would develop markers for identifying past instances of abrupt climate change. NOAA also would be tasked with testing its abrupt climate change models with other global measurements.
The Senate in 2001 and 2003 included Collins' abrupt climate change measure in energy legislation, but the provision did not survive in the final product President Bush signed into law in 2005. Inhofe previously had opposed the language but gave his consent this time. "More knowledge is always better," the Inhofe aide said today.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, added a number of items to the energy bill dealing with green buildings, carbon sequestration and renewable energy.
One amendment would authorize $3 million for a two-year carbon capture demonstration project at the Capitol Hill Power Plant. The facility currently burns coal to produce steam and chilled water to heat and cool the Capitol, Library of Congress, Supreme Court and more than a dozen other buildings.
The Senate also accepted an amendment that would require placement of a $30 million photovoltaic system at the Energy Department headquarters on Independence Avenue in Washington. The "solar net" system was selected in 2000 through a competition to promote energy efficiency technology but was never funded.
And the Senate agreed to an amendment that would create an Office of High-Performance Buildings in the General Service Administration. The new office would coordinate research and development into improving lighting, insulation, fixtures, windows and other features at federal buildings.
Sponsors of the amendment, including Boxer and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), said it that would help to cut heat-trapping pollution from buildings, which produce some 40 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
The "High-Performance Green Buildings Act" also calls on EPA to coordinate voluntary guidelines that improve energy use and air quality in public schools.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) also added to the energy bill an amendment that requires a national assessment of carbon sequestration and methane and nitrous oxide emissions from terrestrial ecosystems.
Advertisement
