December 19, 2007 - President Bush signed a slightly atrophied but still-muscular energy bill into law Wednesday that raises fuel economy standards for the first time in 32 years, mandates an almost sixfold boost in biofuels and encourages conservation with "greener" buildings, light bulbs and appliances.
The slimmed-down measure breezed through both chambers of Congress only after Senate Democrats reluctantly agreed to denude it of two of its bolder initiatives.
"This is about a choice between yesterday and tomorrow," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. D-Calif., told her colleagues before their pivotal 314-100 vote Tuesday. "It is a national security issue, it is an economic issue, it is an environmental issue, and therefore a health issue. It is an energy issue and it is a moral issue."
Front and center is the requirement that automakers bump up fuel efficiency roughly 40 percent by increasing fleet averages of cars, vans and sport utility vehicles to 35 miles per gallon by 2020, and making gradual improvements afterward.
Congress hasn´t acted on federal fuel economy standards since they were created in 1975. Current standards are 27.7 mpg for passenger cars and 22.2 mpg for light trucks and sport utility vehicles.
Also, 36 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels would be part of the transportation fuel mix by 2022. Most of that volume -- 21 billion gallons -- would come from noncorn sources.
Despite what was left out, some advocacy organizations are heralding the law as the most progressive since the 1990 updates to the Clean Air Act.
"After three decades of stalled progress, Congress has delivered much-needed relief for our country´s dangerous oil addiction," said Anna Aurilio of Washington-based Environment America. "[Legislators] deserve tremendous credit for breaking the decades-long logjam on fuel economy."
New fuel economy standards will conserve 1.1 million barrels of oil per day and save consumers $22 billion in 2020, Aurilio estimates. By 2030, she added, these standards will reduce annual global warming emissions by the equivalent of taking 77 million of today´s cars off the road.
The law phases out inefficient incandescent light bulbs within four to six years and requires higher efficiency standards for washers, freezers, refrigerators and other appliances.
Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, thanked Congress for delivering a holiday gift. She figures lighting standards alone will save consumers more than $13 billion by 2020 and eliminate the need for about 60 mid-size power plants.
On the construction front, the measure has provisions to encourage construction of green government buildings and schools; to retrofit old federal buildings with energy-efficient technologies; to establish a carbon capture and storage demonstration project at the coal-burning Capitol Power Plant; and to build a "solar wall" on the roof of the Energy Department´s downtown Washington headquarters.
Other incentives to spur conservation and innovation include grants and loan guarantees to automakers manufacturing efficient vehicles; training programs for green-collar jobs connected with renewable power and energy efficiency; and carbon sequestration research.
For Congress, the two weeks before its winter recess often resembles the final two minutes of a professional basketball game. It´s an all-out high-stakes frenzy to win one for the home team.
The Senate first passed its version of an energy bill June 21, while the House acted on its initial measure Aug. 4. Negotiators then spent months wrangling over a pair of initiatives that gained approval as part of the House package Dec. 6, despite a White House veto threat. Both had to be whittled away in mid-December for the Senate to avoid a Republican filibuster. Senators voted 86-8 on the stripped-down bill, propelling the bill back to the House for a final vote.
Two sticking points were billions of dollars in taxes on oil companies to fund energy conservation and a requirement that electric utilities go greener by garnering 15 percent of their power from wind, solar, biomass and other renewables by 2020.
The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities, guided a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to put the kibosh on a federal one-size-fits-all renewable electricity standard. Nationwide, utilities now generate under 2 percent of electricity from renewables. Half of the states have already adopted renewable standards.
Utilities in the Midwest and Southeast such as Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power and Atlanta-based Southern Co. claim it would be too costly for their customers because the topography in some regions of the Southeast and Midwest limits access to renewables such as solar and wind energy.
The American Petroleum Institute led oil industry opposition to a tax package that added up to almost $22 billion. Those dollars would have financed conservation initiatives.
Much of that money, $13.5 billion over 10 years, would have come from rolling back tax breaks given to the country´s five largest oil companies. A Democratic analysis revealed that figure to be the equivalent of 1.1 percent of the companies´ net profits.
Rep. John Dingell, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the new law could help to unite a bitterly fractured Congress.
"This legislation is not the final word in energy security or climate change," said Dingell, D-Mich. "Most importantly, it represents a glimmer of hope that we will be able to get beyond the gridlock that has afflicted us in far too many areas."
