legislation

Weakened energy bill passes

The bill passes 86 to 8. Again, I will post the full Roll Call when it's posted on the Senate website shortly.

Roll Call on the energy bill

Roll call is still going on, and the thing has gone way over the top. For whatever reason, when Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) was called, and voted no, it rang in my ear. So I went and checked, and sure enough, she's switched her vote. Not sure what animated her. The Michigan thing? Not being able to say she supported a CAFE bill because of its renewable energy requirements?

Others may have switched. I'll post the full roll call when it's up.

Domenici supports watered down energy bill

Ranking Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources committee Pete Domenici (R-NM) just stated strong support for the bill, after voting to kill the much better version. Domenici is as responsible as any single person for blocking the renewable energy provisions in the version of the bill sent up from the House. He deserves maximum raspberries today.

Feinstein agrees with Big Auto about federal fuel efficiency standards

UPDATE: Feinstein is now trying to dig out of this. In all the galling news of today, this probably ranks as a mere annoyance, but still: Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) has her imprimatur on an expression of opinion that could, if it became law, void her own state’s pioneering tailpipe pollution laws, just when the courts […]

Boxer’s supporting the scaled-back energy bill; it will likely pass

She's the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. She carries a lot of weight and many will no doubt follow her lead. This thing is going to pass. James Inhofe just said he thinks it'll probably get about 80 votes. Perhaps the only interesting remaining question is whether anybody (Sanders?) will oppose this thing out of protest.

What the Republicans are saying about the energy bill

The floor debate over the (second) Senate vote on the energy bill has begun.

Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), the first to stand up and speak, now says she will support the bill. She voted no last time, so assuming no Republicans switch from "yeah" to "nay" (and that no Democrats switch from "yeah" to "nay"), this thing will go through.

Senate Republican minority blocks energy bill

The Senate held a cloture vote this morning to overcome a threatened filibuster from Senate Republicans. It failed 59-40 — one vote short of the 60 votes needed. Reid now says he’ll introduce the bill again later today without the clean-energy tax provisions. More later. Right now I’m so disgusted and pissed off I don’t […]

Yet more energy bill woes

This may seem narrow and technical, but it's actually extremely significant:

The White House has raised last-minute concerns over regulation of automobile emissions and fuel economy that aides said Tuesday could lead to a presidential veto of the energy bill now before Congress.

The bill, which passed the House and is pending in the Senate, requires automakers to meet a fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, but does not specify which government agency should enforce the new rule.

Primary regulation of mileage standards has historically fallen to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an arm of the Transportation Department. But vehicle tailpipe emissions are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and a Supreme Court ruling this year affirmed the E.P.A.'s authority to regulate emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from passenger vehicles, which basically would mean regulating their fuel use.

The administration's argument is that the energy bill will create unnecessary confusion over which agency has proper jurisdiction over mileage standards. And at a glance it seems like a reasonable argument. But, of course, it's absolutely not reasonable at all.

This is better understood as a bank-shot effort by the Bush administration to block the EPA from functionally regulating carbon emissions from automobiles on behalf of the interest groups that don't want to be bothered with reducing auto pollution.

Energy bill to be voted on in Senate tomorrow

Some days are uneventful, with little but the promise of extra pie for dessert to get you through. And then ... some days are pivots upon which the course of history turns, moments in time when each of us are called upon to decide the kind of future we want for ourselves and our children, and take to the ramparts. Tomorrow is one such day.

Tomorrow, the Senate will vote on a revised energy bill. Negotiators have jettisoned the renewable electricity standard (RES) and altered some of the revenue-raising tax provisions to make it more palatable to oil-aligned senators and the White House. Still in are CAFE and critical solar investment tax credits necessary to bring solar into the mainstream.

The vote will be extremely close -- the bill needs 60 votes to pass, and the opposition is burning up the phone lines, urging Senators not to vote for a bill that eliminates unneeded production incentives for the oil and gas industry. Word is the good guys are one vote short.

Some people are taking advantage of this moment in history to call their senators and tell them how they feel about renewable energy. Those people find the number of their senators here.

Bill text, bill summary, and solar talking points can all be found here.