[highlander]

Looks like Greenspan wrote the thing. I guess we can spend our way to energy independence. Amazing thing, that money.

[BabyPeanut]

go to http://thomas.loc.gov/

Switch to "Enter bill number" mode on the search box in the upper left-ish corner.

Type in s.10.pcs

Click search

You will go to an online copy. To get a PDF click "GPO's PDF Display", then click "Continue".

Can Somebody Host A Copy Of This Bill In An Easier To Use Location? Thanks!

[Graeme]

IT’S TOO bad more Americans don’t pay attention to what’s actually going on in Congress. While consumers fume about high gas prices and the Internet hums with ridiculous schemes to get back at oil companies by holding one-day “don’t buy” strikes, both the House and Senate have come up with energy bills that give big tax breaks to those very companies. But no one is howling, despite the fact that President Bush himself has said subsidies to oil companies are unnecessary since prices are so high.

The Senate version of the bill is a little more attractive than the House’s, since it does demand that companies start producing some of their energy from renewable sources. The Senate’s bill also omits the House’s provision to ban lawsuits against producers of MTBE, an additive that has poisoned groundwater all over the country. And the Senate rebuffs the House’s permission to open the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve to oil drilling.

But both versions are seriously flawed. Both encourage offshore oil drilling. Neither closes the ridiculous loophole that allows SUVs and light trucks to escape pollution controls. And both contain provisions to repeal the New Deal-era Public Utilities Holding Company Act, a law that prohibits utility companies from consolidating. Without this law, utility owners would be free to create holding companies that could raid company assets and use them for whatever speculative investments they wanted. (Remember Enron?) It would also allow American utilities to be sold to foreign investors.

The president insists this bill will reduce American dependence on foreign oil, but it gives little support to conservation or development of renewable resources here at home. Perhaps it’s fortunate that, according to most observers, the bill may very well founder in the conference committee on the MTBE issue. Neither version addresses the nation’s real energy problems. Both continue to reward Americans’ profligate energy consumption. Until congressional leaders develop the courage to do this, it’s better not to pretend.

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/2005072111

[eastbay]

I bet, without bothering to do the math, that a 55 mph national speed limit would save far more energy than the Maniac-in Chiefs so-called energy bill.

And why not institute a gradually increasing national gasoline tax? That one simple and reasonable move would certainly do more to save energy too. A ten cents/gallon increase per month over a few years would stop most of the wasteful family pick-up, SUV, and large personal vehicle sales quick.

Oh I'm sure thare are dozens of other sensible ways to conserve oil and gas but none will be found in this energy bill.

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'I')T’S TOO bad more Americans don’t pay attention to what’s actually going on in Congress.

[BabyPeanut]

IT'S TOO bad New Zealander's don't notice they are ruled by people who are trying to be as bad.

http://tradehandbook.nzbusiness.co.nz/
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'G')rowth in the value of New Zealand’s exports resumed in the 12 months ended June 2004, following the previous year’s decline in value. The total value of merchandise exports was $28.7 billion, up 1.62% on 2003, though still substantially behind 2002’s $31.1 billion. A continuing challenge, which exporters appeared to be surmounting, was the high value of the New Zealand dollar, especially against the currencies of major trading partners the United States and Australia.

[Graeme]

BabyPeanut, I was not making a pesonal attack against Americans. It was your journalists from the Charleston Gazette, WV. It merely copied their article.

I have contacted our Minister of Energy and here is his response:

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic7950.html

[BabyPeanut]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'I')t was your journalists from the Charleston Gazette, WV.

[The_Toecutter]

Wanna' get back at oil companies?


Convert your car to electric or biodiesel. Bike/walk more, drive less. Grow as much of your own food as you can, eat less, or buy organic when applicable. Stop buying a whole load of worthless shit made in sweatshops. Repair or even make your own clothes. Look into solar and aeolic systems to generate your own electricity. Stop throwing your hard earned money into this unsustainable infinite growth economy. If you're either a terminal psychotic or some extremist that donesn't mind the possibility of life inprisonment, hit vulnerable parts of oil refinaries with a Barret Light .50 if it comes to it!

Lots of options, passive and agressive, moral or amoral.


As usual, this energy bill is another scam. More corporate welfare to the oil industry, more empty promises and platitudes when it comes to alternative fuels(when we have the technology today, not 20 years from now. It's called the battery electric vehicle. No hydrogen shell game needed.), no provisions to lower car use through better public transit and redesigning our cities around people and rail instead of cars, no provisions to reduce electricity consumption through more efficient appliances and making people pay for the social cost of the gas they burn and electricity they use(this social cost comes out of everyone's pockets in the form of medical bills and personal property damage)...

More of the same bullshit. The oil, coal, nuclear, and auto industries get lots of our tax dollars, don't have to pay hard working Americans compensation from the damages their pollution causes, don't have to change to more sustainable but less profitable forms of energy. The government in turn gets to fuck us up the butt even more by requesting even more taxes.

Just wait for the General Motors bailout. $300 billion in debt. More than $2,000 per household is about to be given to this company to keep it afloat. A lot of people could use that money being taken from them.

[Tyler_JC]

With regards to ANWR

http://parody.organique.com/005.html

[SD_Scott]

I used to think that the government should institute much tougher mileage standards. Now I don't think they should bother, because the consumers will decide that issue. Plus they will do it far faster than Washington could ever hope to. And it will be cold and calculated just like CEO's do.

[highlander]

I loved the comment from a lawmaker or lobbist concerning daylight savings time extension. They were concerned about the effect it would have on livestock. I've yet to see an animal that could care about what time was indicated on a clock!

[avo]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry ...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('New York Times', 'W')ASHINGTON, July 25 - Working furiously to try to strike a deal on broad energy legislation, Congressional negotiators on Monday killed two major provisions aimed at curbing consumption of traditional fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal.

House members rejected an effort to incorporate a plan passed by the Senate to require utilities to use more renewable energy like wind and solar power to generate electricity. They also defeated a bid to direct the president to find ways to cut the nation's appetite for oil by one million barrels a day.

[jato]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'c')urbing consumption of traditional fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal.

[Raxozanne]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('avo', 'I') don't know whether to laugh or cry ...

[lateStarter]

This is my favorite part of the article:

"Under strong pressure from the automobile industry, the House and Senate rejected higher efficiency standards. Lawmakers argued that doing so would require redesigns that would make vehicles unsafe and result in a loss of manufacturing jobs."

Makes me crazy

Are they assuming that the only way to increase fuel efficiency is to make the vehicle lighter (and thereby 'less safe' in their minds)?

Perhaps manufacturing would rebound some if they made cars and trucks that people wanted to buy that were at the same time more efficient. I find it hard to believe that the great American marketing machine can't convince the American public that the new fuel efficient vehicles are sexy, desireable, whatever - just buy them. Look at all the other 'stuff' Americans are convinced they must have, all due to clever advertising and/or manipulation.

[Roy]

It's all about profits my friend.

Current designs are already done. The plants are made to produce them.

Investment costs are low to keep producing suburbans, for example. No new factories, tooling, or investments are needed. Maximize profits at every turn regardless of the consequences seems to be the MO.

Designing a new car is a very costly procedure. Re-tooling a factory to produce the new design is likewise immensely expensive.

In order to justify building a new design, the designers have to convince the bean counters that they can sell enough of them to pay off the expenses related to designing, building, and marketing the new design.

Perhaps they're aware that car sales are at their peak. Or maybe it is just the short-term thinking that is so prevalent in this country. I vote for the latter.

[wilburke]

Let's see if we understand the logic of this situation:

The car companies are going broke because people are starting to realize that gas-guzzling SUVs are a rotten deal when gas prices are soaring, and the whole industry is geared toward supporting the luxury/SUV market.....and so, in order to "help" this problem, the car companies have successfully lobbied the Congress to stop efforts to reduce gasoline consumption, the perniciousness of which would presumably lead consumers away from their precious products.....and it is our immense gasoline consumption that is helping to deplete the world's petroleum, thus causing shortages (a mild term for it), and causing the prices to rise, which in turn leads people away from buying gas-guzzling SUVs, which in turn is causing the car companies to go broke.....

Yeah, I'd put my money on "short-term thinking."

[Sgs-Cruz]

Go go gadget bugmenot.com!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Provisions to Curb Oil Use Fall Out of Energy Bill
By CARL HULSE
Published: July 26, 2005


WASHINGTON, July 25 - Working furiously to try to strike a deal on broad energy legislation, Congressional negotiators on Monday killed two major provisions aimed at curbing consumption of traditional fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal.

House members rejected an effort to incorporate a plan passed by the Senate to require utilities to use more renewable energy like wind and solar power to generate electricity. They also defeated a bid to direct the president to find ways to cut the nation's appetite for oil by one million barrels a day.

Backers of the initiative to identify the oil savings said it was an alternative to the politically difficult approach of increasing automotive gas mileage standards and would demonstrate that Congress was serious about cutting the nation's dependence on oil imports.

"We are having an energy bill that is doing so much on the supply side that we need to address the demand side," said Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who said the goal was the "bare minimum of what we ought to be doing."

But Republican opponents of the plan said the fuel savings target could lead to unpopular restrictions like mandatory car pools and put too much responsibility for achieving the goal in the hands of the president.

"Just telling the president to wave a magic wand and tell each and every one of us that we need to conserve may sound good," said Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, "but those of us elected by the people every two years have a different view of that."

Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the senior Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said his plan to require power plant operators who now rely on coal, oil and natural gas to increase their use of renewable fuels was a low-cost, market-driven approach to cutting demand for fossil fuels and easing air pollution.

Under the proposal, which has repeatedly passed the Senate, utilities would have to generate at least 10 percent of their electricity through renewable fuels by 2020.

"It would reduce our dependence on traditional polluting sources of electricity," Mr. Bingaman said.

But opponents of the initiative, known as the renewable portfolio standard, asserted it would drive up the cost of electricity, conflict with similar state initiatives and put a burden on utilities in some regions where acceptable alternative fuels are in short supply.

The energy bill has come under criticism from some lawmakers and conservation groups for doing too little to cut into the nation's dependence on foreign oil while increasing oil and gas production. The two provisions dropped Monday were seen by the environmental community as among the few bright spots in the energy bill.

While House and Senate negotiators on energy policy met into the night in an effort to agree on an energy measure that could clear the House and Senate this week, a separate group of lawmakers was trying to hash out the tax elements of an energy proposal.

Lawmakers and aides said they expected the tax breaks and incentives to cost in the neighborhood of $11.5 billion: more than sought by the House and White House but less than approved by the Senate. Should lawmakers agree on that figure, the tax package was expected to include a substantial emphasis on tax credits for energy efficiency.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, told reporters he believed negotiators could also potentially come to agreement this week on a long overdue $286 billion highway and transit bill. As lawmakers sought to clear a backlog of bills before recessing for the summer, other unresolved business included the Central American Free Trade Agreement and repeal or revision of the inheritance tax.

At the White House, Scott McClellan, the spokesman, said the administration was eager to see an energy bill since President Bush has been calling for a new energy policy since taking office in 2001. "Four years is long enough to wait for comprehensive energy legislation," Mr. McClellan said.

The prospects for an energy bill improved markedly on Sunday when the negotiators said they would abandon a contentious plan to provide producers and distributors of the gasoline additive MTBE legal immunity from some pollution lawsuits. That plan stalled the bill two years ago and was looming as a significant obstacle again this year.

[aahala]

The energy bill is a camel with three humps and three legs,
designed by a committee of 538 and a supporting cast of thousands
called special interests.