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Energy Bill Passes House

Posted on: Friday, 29 July 2005, 15:00 CDT

Jul. 29--WASHINGTON -- After struggling for more than a decade, Congress is poised to send President Bush a comprehensive U.S. energy plan that extends daylight-saving time, nurtures development of nuclear power and alternative fuels and provides new tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.

The compromise bill cleared the House 275-156 on Thursday and is widely expected to win Senate passage today, giving Bush a showcase legislative victory before Congress leaves for a monthlong summer recess.

Enactment of the legislation would also mark a personal triumph for House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton of Ennis, who presided over the tedious deliberations that shaped the compromise. Barton, a Republican who represents part of Tarrant County, has called the measure the "most comprehensive energy bill in 40 years."

Opponents denounced the bill as corporate welfare for the energy industry, but supporters hailed it as the best possible compromise toward developing a broad-reaching U.S. energy policy, with features that encourage conservation as well as energy production.

One feature will affect every American: The bill would extend daylight-saving time by one month beginning in 2007, having it run from the second Sunday in March through the first Sunday in November. At present, daylight-saving time extends from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October.

Proponents of the extension said it will help reduce consumption of fuel used to generate electricity.

The bill includes tax incentives totaling $11.6 billion over 11 years to boost oil and gas production and stimulate development of nuclear, coal, wind and solar power and other alternative energy sources. The incentives include a new tax credit of up to $3,400 for the purchase of hybrid vehicles.

Barton and other leading proponents acknowledge that the measure will have no immediate effect at the gas pump.

"Over the years, you're going to see gas prices go down, although it's not going to happen anytime soon," Barton said in an interview. But he said the package of incentives at least put America on the path toward easing its dependence on imported oil, which now makes up more than half of U.S. oil consumption.

Barton jettisoned one controversial feature that threatened to block the bill in the Senate: a provision giving legal protection to manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE against lawsuits for polluting ground water supplies.

Another stumbling block -- opening up Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Range -- was also removed from the bill to defuse a likely filibuster in the Senate. But proponents of the Alaska drilling provision will get another chance under a plan to include it in a Senate budget measure that is protected from filibusters.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., said the bill's proponents "put the profits of their friends in the energy industry ahead of the needs of the American people."

Called the Energy Policy Act -- but also known as the Domenici-Barton Act, after Barton and his Senate counterpart Pete Domenici, R-N.M. -- the bill tracks many of the president's major energy initiatives.

The measure includes numerous provisions to encourage use of emerging fuel sources such as geothermal energy and biomass products like wood chips or animal waste. The Interior and Agriculture departments, for example, would be authorized to provide grants to owners and operators of facilities who use biomass to produce electricity.

Other features include federal royalty relief for deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and expanding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to 1 billion barrels.

ENERGY LEGISLATION

Highlights of the energy bill:

--Extension of daylight-saving time by three weeks in spring and one week in fall.

--Tax breaks of $14.5 billion for energy companies, renewable energy sources and efficiency promotion.

--Double ethanol use.

--New efficiency standards for commercial appliances.

--New reliability standards for the electric-transmission grid, hoping to avoid blackouts.

--$1 billion for coastal environmental management in states with offshore oil production.

--Loan guarantees and subsidies for clean energy and nuclear reactors.

Source: The Associated Press

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Copyright (c) 2005, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

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Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)

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