A version of this story appears in today's E&E Daily.
The Senate approved a compromise agreement yesterday on corporate average fuel economy (CAFE), adding the provision to the sprawling energy bill in a voice vote with little debate.
The compromise fuel economy plan was cobbled together in recent days by Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) in a bid to end a CAFE battle. The full Senate passed the underlying energy bill, 65-27.
The quick, quiet end to the battle over fuel efficiency surprised supporters of the legislation who said they had expected to spend most of the evening arguing over the issue on the Senate floor.
"You just never know," Feinstein said after the voice vote. "You work year after year after year for something, and you find yourself cut out any number of times, and you don't succeed any number of times, and all of a sudden it just happens."
The compromise plan keeps in place the Senate bill's provision to raise CAFE standards for cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. But the amendment drops the mandated 4 percent per year increase from 2021 to 2030, instead directing the Transportation Department to establish the "maximum feasible" standard.
The current CAFE standard is 27.5 mpg for cars and 22.5 mpg for trucks.
The Senate provision would apply to all automobiles weighing under 10,000 pounds, though heavy-duty trucks would be exempt from the mandated increase and subject to the maximum feasible standard.
The amendment also drops a mandate that 50 percent of all new cars be flex-fuel by 2012, instead directing the Department of Transportation to develop a plan to make sure that 50 percent of all vehicles sold in the United States by 2015 are alternative fuel vehicles, which includes flex-fuel, hybrids and fuel cells.
The Michigan senators -- Democrats Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow -- did not endorse the CAFE proposal. And both voted against the overall energy bill later in the evening.
Several Republicans who were viewed as key swing votes on the debate signed on as supporters to the new CAFE plan -- among them Sens. Trent Lott (Miss.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Bob Corker (Tenn.), Elizabeth Dole (N.C.), Larry Craig (Idaho) and John Sununu (N.H.). This suggests a competing proposal by Levin and Stabenow had little chance of winning a floor vote.
The congressional CAFE fight is far from over. The Senate plan could run into substantial opposition if it gets to a conference with the House. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) earlier this week pulled CAFE from his committee's portion of the summer energy package, adding it and several other controversial issues to the climate change bill later in the year.
A draft proposal introduced by Dingell earlier this month contained a mandated CAFE increase that was more modest than the Senate's.
Yet proponents of a CAFE increase are holding out hope that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will press ahead with a CAFE increase despite Dingell's opposition.
When asked yesterday whether she would amend the House energy bill to include CAFE, Pelosi said, "We're watching to see what the Senate bill is. Right now we're taking it one day at a time."
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) -- a senior member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and one of the House's most vocal advocates for a CAFE increase -- said he intends to press the House to adopt the Senate plan as part of the summer energy package.
"There is clear support for the 35 mile-per-gallon goal, and I intend to proceed with a strategy to ensure that the House matches the Senate's action and includes a strong fuel economy provision in our summer energy package," Markey said in a statement.
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