Those following the energy bill developments... we learned this past week that there is more contention and target for releasing the bill for vote has been pushed back til mid October. Last night there was a story that Bush is starting to exert pressure on getting it passed.
Those not following - a quick summary of the status of the bill. The house passed a bill out that looks a lot like Cheney's proposals two years ago that came from his secret energy task force that he is being sued over (and he and Ted Olsen just appealed to the Supreme Court a lower court ruling forcing them to release the name of participants of the Energy Task Force - I believe it is a delay tactic, they will lose, but want the bill passed before being forced to release the names). A new bill was stalled in the senate, so a deal was cut to revert to the bill passed last year in the Senate that is still very bad (deregulation and lots of goodies to corps) but not quite as bad - with the most attention given to the fact that ANWR was not in the senate version.
The bill then went to conference committee - where house and senate members are selected to hammer out a single compromise bill.
But - the republicans froze out the democrats on the conference committee and only the republicans have been doing the hammering.
They threw out the bill altogether, and have reportedly been relying on industry lobbyists to draft big components of this bill.
Several controversial items have been introduced - some of which did not appear in either the house or the senate bill (giving credence to the story that this was written not in compromise but by the lobbyists). This includes opening up shorelines to a 'survey of oil reserves' with wording that shoves open the door to coastal drilling.
Also of controversy is granting energy companies the power of imminent domain - the ability to take private property for pipelines and other means of energy transmission.
There is also a centralizing of regulatory power (against states rights when it benefits corps of course) taking power away from state utility commissions and giving it to FERC (who in regulating market manipulation in California has proven woefully inadequate and tilted to favor companies - even after massive fraud has been proven - ie they do NOT protect consumers/citizens). This is a batttle between northeastern states, (who after the blackout have been sold on the idea that such oversight would have prevented the blackout due to quicker flow of information ... but this has been debunked, I believe, by Public Citizen) and southern and northwestern states who fear that this would be means to jack up rates in rural (esp southern) where there is little incentive to invest (for companies) and thus the traditional system is better to protect the needs of rural energy users.
Regarding ANWR - the republican senate chair (Domenici) said in early Sept that Anwr was out - as he would not let the bill out that would not pass the senate and this would kill in the senate. Then a few days later they added a "scaled back" version - plus some bribes to key senators ($ for corps in their states, such as Coleman in Minn) - to tip the scales. But a new controversy has sprung up around which pipeline - with issues I have not figured out well enough to summarize (involve a Canadian pipeline; price protections and more, along with favoring a more expensive pipeline over a more efficient - but the more expensive has more corporate $$ and influence).
One other major issue - that should have opposition but folks on the hill have just yawned at - is a serious move to further deregulate energy by the removal of the Public Utilities Holding Companies Act. This would allow more insidious manipulation (harder to track and see) than what was witnessed in California in 2001.
All that is background.
Check out the Newest Outrage:
Energy bill insert could relax limits on uranium trade
By R. JEFFREY SMITH
Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- A provision written into the pending omnibus energy bill at the behest of two nuclear companies would overturn a decade-old U.S. policy of discouraging worldwide trade in bomb-grade uranium by eliminating constraints on U.S. exports of the material to five countries for medical isotope production, current and former U.S. officials say.
Currently, the U.S. government can export such uranium only to isotope manufacturers moving toward the eventual use of another type of uranium that poses no risk of nuclear proliferation. The provision, inserted into a compromise version of the Energy Policy Act of 2003 without congressional hearings, would free two manufacturing companies, based in Canada and Missouri, to keep receiving U.S. bomb-grade uranium indefinitely.
read article:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2136505Folks - I think we need to encourage groups to put pressure on the democrats in the senate to prepare to fillibuster this bill to death. It grows more dangerous by the day.
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