Text 15796, 107 rader
Skriven 2005-10-02 22:28:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Energy Bill
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http://www.forbes.com/business/forbes/2005/1003/035.html

Current Events 
An Energy Bill--At Last 
Caspar W. Weinberger, 10.03.05, 12:00 AM ET 
 
Throughout his first term and for half the first year of his second, 
President Bush besieged, pleaded with and literally begged Congress for 
a comprehensive energy bill. His predecessors had also spent years 
asking for an energy bill that would encourage the use of domestically 
available energy sources, as well as the development of new cleaner 
sources that would lessen our dependence on unreliable foreign ones. 

In July Congress finally passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the same 
week it passed a highway bill that was nearly as controversial. (There's 
nothing like an approaching election to spur legislative progress.) The 
energy bill the President signed into law Aug. 8 contains at least the 
average number of "compromises" (read: the Administration's giving up 
programs it really wanted and needed, such as oil drilling in the Arctic 
National Wildlife Refuge and obtaining higher fuel-efficiency standards 
in cars and trucks). But that aside, the Administration did score major 
goals: 

• A new form of federal risk insurance to encourage the construction and 
licensing of new nuclear power plants. 

• Funds to promote hydrogen-fuel-cell technology and the launch of a 
state-of-the-art program to develop hydrogen-fuel-cell cars able to 
compete in the marketplace by 2020; $200 million for the Clean Cities 
program, which will provide grants to state and local governments to 
acquire alternative-fuel vehicles; tax credits for consumers who buy 
fuel-efficient hybrid or clean-diesel cars and trucks. 

• New tax incentives to promote clean-coal technology; the extension of 
existing tax credits for energy produced from renewable resources, such 
as wind, biomass and landfill gas, as well as new incentives to promote 
clean, renewable geothermal energy; and a new tax credit for residential 
solar energy systems. Altogether $14.6 billion in federal funds will be 
used to encourage the use of new, alternative and renewable resources. 

There are a raft of other things in the bill, such as modernizing and 
increasing the reliability of our power grids and instituting the reform 
of transmission-siting rules for power lines. The bill--to placate 
legislators from farm states--establishes a renewable fuels standard 
that will add 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol (made from corn) and other 
renewable-based fuel to the nation's supply of gasoline by 2012. In 1990 
Congress mandated the use of oxygenates: Fuelmakers could choose MTBE or 
ethanol (more expensive and at the time not produced in large 
quantities). MTBE has since been found to contaminate drinking water. 
The bill provides for an innovative program (in partnership with some 
countries in the Pacific Rim) that encourages the biggest new energy 
consumers, China and India, to use clean, modern and efficient energy 
technologies and helps wean them from their heavy dependence on fossil 
fuels--of vital importance as their energy demands grow. And in an 
attempt to meet the demands that these two giants' growth will put on 
existing oil supplies, the bill seeks a new inventory of oil and gas 
resources on the Outer Continental Shelf. This provoked arguments on 
both sides of the aisle: Florida and North Carolina say it will only 
encourage pressure for more U.S. drilling; others say it will help 
identify energy sources before those two countries are consuming 
supplies full bore. 


Critics Carp
In typical fashion critics jumped into the fray, claiming the bill won't 
reduce oil prices; it requires too many (or not enough) subsidies; and 
it makes too many (or not enough) attempts to reduce consumption. A 
perfect illustration of why it took so long to get a comprehensive bill. 

There are several particularly contentious sections in this bill. One is 
the provision for an increase in domestic gas and oil exploration in 
nonpark federal lands. Another is the provision to make it easier to 
build new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and refineries. The bill 
gives local governments more power in deciding whether to permit LNG 
plants to be built on or near any proposed locations by requiring forums 
to be held at those locations. Opponents say this is just a taxpayer-
financed way of drumming up support for a fuel that would increase our 
reliance on foreign energy and put coastal areas at risk for explosions 
and tanker accidents. 

One potentially dangerous clause made it into the bill despite 
opposition from the White House, the House Energy Committee and a 
majority of the Senate: a provision that severely weakens present 
restrictions on the export of highly enriched uranium. Under the new 
clause more than 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium--a crucial 
ingredient for a Hiroshima-type atomic bomb--may be exported each year. 
Larger amounts exported mean more chance of its falling into terrorist 
hands. Lobbyists claim that foreign pharmaceutical companies need this 
type of uranium to produce medical isotopes that are reimported by the 
U.S. medical community for diagnostics and treatments. These isotopes 
can be produced with low-enriched uranium; however, foreign companies 
want to avoid the cost of converting their systems. This provision can 
and should be wiped out by the "clarifying" act that always follows 
complicated bills like this one. 


Of Prime Importance
None of these issues, however, should detract from the fact that we 
finally have a bill that will encourage additional, cleaner and more 
reliable sources of energy, something we have urgently needed for far 
too many years. This bill is truly comprehensive. It doesn't, for 
example, simply subsidize ethanol; it encourages a broad range of new 
explorations in a major effort to try to move us away from our heavy 
dependence on imported fossil fuels. 

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