Scaled-back energy bill losing legs
Former supporters are now dubious
Wednesday February 18, 2004
By Bruce Alpert
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON --
A scaled-back energy bill has not only failed to win over some key opponents, but also has some of the original legislation's most ardent supporters wavering. That is bad news for Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who removed a contentious provision and cut billions of dollars in costs from the original bill in an effort to build support. The Senate is expected to take up the reworked bill next week.
Groups advocating more deficit reduction and improved environmental enforcement remain opposed to the bill.
But of even more concern is that previous supporters, such as Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, are expressing concerns about some of the changes. Landrieu, the only Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee to back the original bill, said she might not vote for the new legislation because it has been stripped of $1.1 billion in guaranteed money for coastal impact assistance in Louisiana.
more:
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1077089170133780.xml Meanwhile... in the ongoing effort to assist the President to be able to continue his record breaking fundraising... the effort to demonstrate the ability for the pres to financially reward his big donors in the energy industries marches on.... In the conservative mouthpiece the Washington Times... the following editorial appears:
Wanted: an energy bill
The nation's chronic energy crises are being abetted by the chronic failure of Congress to do anything about it. Political embarrassment will be the least of the consequences of a Republican-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate again failing to send a bill that makes substantive improvements to energy production to the Republican president.
Last week, Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Pete Domenici introduced a scaled-down version of the energy bill that was filibustered by the Senate last fall. Its estimated cost of $14 billion is about half of last year's measure, but Mr. Domenici claims that the bill would still create about 800,000 jobs. A variety of items were stripped, including liability protections for producers of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), $1.1 billion in coastal restoration for Louisiana and $500 million for rural electricity development done by Alaska's Denali Commission. The bill still includes several needed reforms, such as mandatory reliability standards for electrical grids, reauthorization of the Price-Anderson nuclear plant insurance and repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA), but is also still freighted with several unfortunate provisions, including extensive ethanol subsidies.
more:
http://washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040217-084607-5718r.htm