NYT editorial: Testing Time on Energy

New York Times

The most dangerous point in the trajectory of any new legislation is the conference committee, where House and Senate negotiators resolve their differences. In 2005, for instance, Senate negotiators carried three forward-looking energy measures into conference with the House — a provision requiring utilities to produce some of their power from renewable sources, an oil-savings amendment and a resolution to take action on global warming. They whiffed on all three, and the result was a bill that did little to move the country toward a cleaner energy future.

That cannot happen with this year’s energy bill, which will go to conference this month. The debate has shifted dramatically in the last two years, and a rising awareness in Congress of the risks of climate change and oil dependency has brought forth two respectable, if incomplete, energy bills that could be merged into one truly outstanding bill. The committee’s task will be to marry the best of both, resisting the historical tug to trade away anything good and controversial in the interest of compromise. Here is our must-have list:

Fuel efficiency. The Senate approved the first serious upgrade in fuel economy standards since 1975. It would increase the average mileage of cars and trucks from 25 miles per gallon today to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 — hardly an impossible goal and one that could save 2.3 million barrels of oil a day, or about what we now import from the Persian Gulf. The House ducked the issue, so the Senate should insist that the provision remain in the bill that emerges from conference.

Renewable electricity. The House bill requires utilities to generate 15 percent of their power from a combination of efficiency and renewables like wind. Republicans killed a similar provision on the Senate side, so in this case the House must stand firm. The less we use traditional fossil fuels like coal and natural gas, the greater our chances of slowing global warming.

Taxing Big Oil. The 2005 energy bill was exceedingly generous to an oil and gas industry that, thanks to favorable tax advantages and $60 oil, is awash in profits. Both houses tried to pare back some of the tax breaks and use the proceeds to develop alternative fuels. The House succeeded, the Senate did not. The House bill also contains overdue protections for sensitive Western lands threatened by oil and gas drilling. The House negotiators should stick to their guns in both instances.

Alternative fuels. Both houses seek in different ways to increase the production of corn ethanol and a cleaner, more advanced version known as cellulosic ethanol, which would confer major benefits in terms of oil savings and reduced greenhouse gases. The conferees’ main task here is to make sure that intensive cultivation for biofuels of any kind does not result in water pollution, habitat destruction or loss of forest land.

There are other provisions more or less common to both bills that would encourage energy efficiency and new technologies to control greenhouse gases. These, of course, should be retained.

Even if a great bill emerges, it cannot and should not be seen as a substitute for comprehensive climate change legislation that puts a stiff price on carbon and drives major new investments in the cleaner technologies we will need to really get a handle on global warming. This issue will not be fully joined until later in the session. In the meantime, though, a good energy bill would help slow greenhouse gas emissions, provide some of the tools we will need to fight the larger battle and set the stage for bolder measures down the road.

(The article is here.)