A Fossilized Energy Bill

Jeff Rickert and Brian Siu
June 29, 2005



Jeff Rickert is interim director and Brian Siu is an energy policy analyst at the Apollo Alliance.

The passage of the energy bill in the Senate represents a lost opportunity to take the nation in a new direction. With energy prices soaring and conflict in energy-producing regions escalating, Congress should be enacting a crash program to achieve energy independence. The public support is there. The Apollo Alliance and all the groups and individuals who fought to deliver a new vision of our energy future are testament to that will and that opportunity. Yesterday, America lost a chance to not only make the nation more secure, but to make an investment that would create millions of jobs, produce a healthier environment and build stronger communities.

Certainly, the Senate did better than the House, but the bar was not set all that high. The House of Representatives, in April, passed the same tired business-as-usual energy thinking that amounts to little more than a corporate giveaway for traditional energy producers. Out of $8 billion in tax incentives, the House bill allocates $500 million (only 6 percent) to efficiency and renewables. It includes an amendment that would repeal the Public Utilities Holding Company Act, a provision that is the last line of defense between stable electricity delivery and putting the entire nation in peril of an Enron-like crisis. Further, it gives the federal government the authority to override the will of states in determining sites for liquefied natural gas plants. These facilities raise serious health and safety concerns for the surrounding communities. And, most notoriously, the House bill includes the controversial MTBE provision that would shield oil and gas refiners from the billions of dollars of liability they face for groundwater contamination.