The New York Times
Tuesday 12 June 2007
Washington - Having tried and failed to overhaul the nation's immigration laws last week, Congress begins what some say is an even more divisive project this week: taming America's thirst for oil.
With gasoline prices hovering near all-time highs, the Senate on Monday began debating a sprawling energy bill that has already kicked off an epic lobbying war by huge industries, some of them in conflict with one another: car companies, oil companies, electric utilities, coal producers and corn farmers, to name a few.
Industry groups have raced to sign up influential lawmakers and are nervously calculating how much regulation they might have to accept from the Democratic majority in Congress.
"This is going to be harder than immigration," said John B. Breaux, a former Democratic senator from Louisiana who is representing Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that recently took control of the Chrysler Corporation. "This is going to be the mother of all bills. By that I mean, any one portion of it is important enough to affect completion of the whole bill."
Detroit's automakers are lobbying hard against tough fuel economy standards, but they support increased production of ethanol and other alternative fuels.
But Charles W. Stenholm, a former Democratic representative from Texas, is lobbying on behalf of oil producers and cattle farmers against big subsidies for corn-based ethanol.
The Senate bill, as well as a similar measure in the House, would force automakers to increase the fuel economy of their cars and light trucks. It would require a huge expansion of alternative fuels for cars and trucks as well as electric power plants. And it is expected to offer as much as $25 billion in tax breaks over 10 years to promote those fuels.
"Bold steps and big ideas," Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in a speech on Monday. "The Democratic plan is all about harnessing power: the clear, renewable power that exists literally all around us."
Senate leaders have allotted up to two weeks for debate, but that may not be enough. It took the Republican-controlled Congress four years to pass the last major energy bill, in 2005, and even that measure almost died because of fights over a peripheral issue involving a fuel additive.
This time, Democrats are emphasizing renewable fuels, as opposed to the Republican focus on increased oil production.
But lawmakers from both parties are drafting scores of proposed amendments, many of which would tilt the competitive advantage of one industry over another, and some would cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
Some debates are over basic questions that seem obvious but are not. Does "clean" and "renewable" energy include nuclear power? Should the government subsidize only "renewable" fuels, like wind or ethanol, or should it subsidize "alternative" fuels, including coal-based liquids, that might substitute for oil and reduce dependence on foreign oil?
The clash between rival industry agendas was apparent on Monday. Fifteen trade associations and companies from the food industry warned senators in a letter that heavy government subsidies for ethanol would push up prices for corn and other feed, and thus the cost of food.
"It is essential to carefully weigh the impacts of these policy actions," warned the group, which includes trade associations for beef, pork, turkey and chicken producers as well as big food companies like the H. J. Heinz Company, the Kellogg Company and Nestlé.
Food producers use corn as a feedstock for cattle and poultry as well as an ingredient in things like baked goods and soft drinks. "We are in favor of developing all the alternative energy that we can, but we need to be as market-oriented as possible," said Mr. Stenholm, the former member of Congress from Texas who now lobbies for oil and farming industries. "You can't produce food and feed without oil and gas, and you can't produce oil and gas without food and feed and fiber."
As groups jockey for position, the underlying agendas are often less than obvious.
The Energy Security Leadership Council, which includes the chief executives of big energy-consuming companies like FedEx and Southwest Airlines, began broadcasting television advertisements Monday night on CNN, Fox and other cable news outlets.
The advertisements warn that "America's enemies understand that oil is the lifeblood of our economy," and strongly support higher fuel-economy standards for cars and an expansion of "alternative fuels."
But the group also supports nuclear fuel as an alternative to coal. Coincidentally or not, a co-founder of the group is John Rowe, chief executive of the Exelon Corporation, an electric utility company that is also the nation's biggest operator of nuclear power plants.
Amid all the complexity of the energy bills, the biggest fights are likely to center on a handful of issues.
One fight will be over whether to increase the government's mandate for production of renewable fuels for cars and trucks to 36 billion gallons a year in 2022 from about 8.6 billion gallons a year in 2008.
President Bush proposed a similar goal in January, but Mr. Bush's mandate could be satisfied in part with coal-based liquid fuels. The coal industry, which has political support in both parties, is pushing for the government to guarantee billions of dollars in loans for coal-to-liquid plants as well as price subsidies and long-term government purchases.
Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, the chairman of the Energy Committee and the Senate bill's main author, has opposed big government support for coal-to-liquid fuels. But House Democrats have already included coal measures in early drafts of their energy bill.
A second fight will be over increased fuel-economy requirements for cars and light trucks. The Senate bill would require that cars, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles have a combined average mileage of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The current requirement is 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 24 miles per gallon for light trucks.
Car manufacturers are fiercely fighting the measure, though they have agreed to the general call for higher fuel-economy requirements. The manufacturers are insisting that light trucks and sport utility vehicles be allowed to meet a lower mileage standard.
House Democrats are bogged down in a major intraparty battle over a related issue. A bill drafted by two Democrats, Representative Rick Boucher of Virginia and Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, would reverse a Supreme Court ruling that directed the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant.
The draft bill has set off a furor among lawmakers, governors and attorneys general from California and 11 other states that want to impose tough new restrictions on emissions of carbon dioxide.
A third big fight is likely over a section in Mr. Bingaman's bill that would create a "renewable energy standard" for electric utilities by requiring them to produce 15 percent of their power from renewable sources of energy by 2020.
Electric utilities and coal producers are opposed. Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Energy Committee, is expected to offer a substitute "clean energy" standard that would allow utilities to use nuclear and "clean coal" technologies to meet their requirements.
Can Congress Cut Its Carbon? Leaders Think So
By Susan Walsh
The Associated Press
Monday 11 June 2007
Lamps replaced and alternative vehicles bought, but battle over coal plant remains.
Washington - Congress says it is going to join the war against global warming by cleaning up its own backyard, now cluttered with a coal-burning power plant, a fleet of fuel-inefficient vehicles and old-fashioned lights.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set a goal of making House operations carbon neutral during this session of Congress, meaning the House would remove as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it adds by the end of next year.
"The House must lead by example and it is time for Congress to act on its own carbon footprint," Pelosi said in announcing the initiative that would also shift the House to 100 percent renewable electric power.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has sponsored legislation with the long-term aim of making the entire Capitol complex, 23 buildings where some 15,000 people work, carbon neutral by 2020.
Currently the Capitol complex, which includes office buildings, the Library of Congress, the Botanic Garden and the Government Printing Office, accounts for about 316,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, the same as 57,455 cars.
Century-Old Coal Plant
About one-third of that comes from the combustion of fossil fuels at the 97-year-old Capitol Power Plant, the only coal-burning facility in the District of Columbia.
In addition, the Government Accountability Office said in a recent report that there is not one hybrid-electric vehicle in the legislative branch fleet of more than 300 vehicles. The fleet, mostly light-duty trucks, has only 35 vehicles that use alternative fuels, although the Architect's Office has ordered that almost all newly acquired vehicles be alternative-fuel compatible.
House workers have taken the immediate step of converting 2,000 desk lamps to more efficient compact fluorescent lamps. Within six months the remaining 10,000 desk lamps will switch to CFLs, saving the House $245,000 a year in electric power costs.
House Chief Administrative Officer Daniel Beard, in a report to Pelosi, said the House side of the Capitol, which includes four large office buildings, was responsible for 91,000 tons of greenhouse gas in the fiscal year ending last September, equivalent to annual carbon dioxide emissions of 17,200 cars.
The largest source of carbon dioxide comes from the purchase of electricity. Beard said his office, working with the Architect of the Capitol, will strive to meet all electricity needs, about 103,000 megawatt-hours per year, with renewable sources. Currently, more than half the electricity Congress buys is generated by coal. Only 2 percent comes from renewable fuels.
That alone, Beard said, would eliminate 57,000 tons a year of greenhouse gas emissions, the same as removing 11,000 cars from the roads. Another 7,130 tons would be saved with plans to convert overhead ceiling lights with high-efficiency lighting and controls.
He said these steps, and others including buying energy-efficient computers and furnishings containing recycled products and installing an ethanol tank for congressional vehicles, would still leave them about 34,000 tons short of meeting the carbon neutrality goal. This could be dealt with either by buying offset credits in the domestic market or contributing a per ton payment to a "green revolving fund" where revenues received from various sources are used for energy and water conservation initiatives.
On the Senate side, Rules and Administration Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has outlined a plan to audit energy use in all Senate buildings and reduce energy consumption by 30 percent by 2015 by installing high-efficiency lighting and buying renewable energy supplies.
All these efforts, said Anthony Kreindler, spokesman for Environmental Defense, are "meaningful not only for what they are doing for the Capitol, but it does set a good example for the rest of the country."
Political Battle Over Coal
The biggest challenge remains the Capitol Power Plant, an eyesore located four blocks south of the Capitol. The plant hasn't generated power since 1952, but it does provide steam for heating and cooling.
The plant's boilers are fired using coal for 49 percent of their output and natural gas for 47 percent. While the plant is a fairly small source of air pollutants, it is still the District's third-biggest polluter, after two local power company plants.
"In the shadow of the nation's capital, we should expect more than a dirty power plant that pollutes the air and our community," Kerry said in a statement.
Lawmakers, dealing with the over-budget, still-unfinished $600 million Capitol Visitor Center, are in no mood to spend money on a new plant, and proposals to eliminate coal have been resisted by coal-state Sens. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
"With the emergence of new clean coal technologies, I believe coal should play a role in meeting the energy needs of the Capitol complex," Byrd said.
A proposed House spending bill for 2008 sets aside $3.9 million to begin replacing coal with greater use of natural gas. The Senate, in a nod to Byrd and McConnell, is backing a $3 million plan by Senate Environment Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., for a project that reduces carbon dioxide when coal is burned at the plant.
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