29 July 2005International Herald Tribune
The energy bill that has been six years in the making and is nearing President George W. Bush's desk is not the unrelieved disaster some environmentalists make it out to be. But to say, as Bush undoubtedly will, that it will swiftly move America to a cleaner, more secure energy future is nonsense. The bill, approved by a House-Senate conference on Tuesday, does not take the bold steps necessary to reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, and it fails to address the looming problem of global warming.
These shortcomings are chiefly the fault of the White House and its retainers in the House. To be sure, the Senate showed no more courage than the House in its refusal to increase fuel-economy standards for cars and trucks.
But the Senate did approve a renewable-fuels provision requiring power plants to produce 10 percent of their electricity from nontraditional sources, like wind power, by 2010. It also approved a provision that would ask the president to reduce domestic oil consumption by 1 million barrels a day by whatever means he chose. The House conferees rejected both proposals.
Meanwhile, both houses conspired in some spectacular giveaways. One would ease environmental restrictions on oil and gas companies drilling on public lands. The other would shower billions in undeserved tax breaks on the same companies, even as they wallow in windfall profits due to high oil prices.
The bill's most useful provisions may take years to realize their promise. Again thanks largely to the Senate, the tax provisions are far more hospitable to energy efficiency and renewable fuels than earlier versions of the bill, and include substantial buyers' incentives for fuel-efficient hybrid cars.
More important in the long run, however, may be two provisions, buried deep in the bill, that are aimed at developing new energy technologies. One would encourage the development and commercial application of biofuels from agricultural products that, much like corn-based ethanol, might someday be used as a substitute for gasoline. The other is aimed at developing new clean-coal technologies to turn coal into a gas and, more important, capture emissions of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming.
These could be powerful new tools in any future effort to reshape the way Americans produce and use energy. But the success of both will depend on the willingness of the government to put money into them.
That, in turn, will require a deeper commitment to a more adventurous energy policy than this administration has so far displayed.
