NYT: Senate Adopts an Energy Bill Raising Mileage for Cars...but R's block other key provisions

[flpoljunkie]

Yet another reason to pass S.1285, Fair Elections Now Act, public financing of Senate campaigns. A hearing was finally held this week in the Senate Rules Committee. Sponsors of the bill are Senators Dick Durbin and Arlen Spector. Link to bill summary: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.01285:

June 22, 2007
Senate Adopts an Energy Bill Raising Mileage for Cars

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, June 21 — The Senate passed a broad energy bill late Thursday that would, among other things, require the first big increase in fuel mileage requirements for passenger cars in more than two decades.

The vote, 65 to 27, was a major defeat for car manufacturers, which had fought for a much smaller increase in fuel economy standards and is expected to keep fighting as the House takes up the issue.

But Senate Democrats also fell short of their own goals. In a victory for the oil industry, Republican lawmakers successfully blocked a crucial component of the Democratic plan that would have raised taxes on oil companies by about $32 billion and used the money on tax breaks for wind power, solar power, ethanol and other renewable fuels.

Republicans also blocked a provision of the legislation that would have required electric utilities to greatly increase the share of power they get from renewable sources of energy.

As a result, Senate Democrats had to settle for a bill that calls for a vast expansion of renewable fuels over the next decade — to 36 billion gallons a year of alternatives to gasoline — but does little to actually promote those fuels through tax breaks or other subsidies.

The combination of breakthroughs and setbacks highlighted the blocking power of the entrenched industry groups, from oil companies and electric utilities to car manufacturers, that had blanketed Congress in recent days to defend their interests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/us/22energy.html?hp