Pelosi vs. Dingell on CAFE
The Washington Post reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in talks with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (Mich.) on how to introduce the CAFE standards legislation that passed the Senate last month. Also of interest from the article, discussing the overall House energy legislation:
Lobbyists are still working to alter key parts of the legislation as it moves to the House floor and later to conference committee with the Senate. The American Petroleum Institute has been lobbying to limit the impact of tax measures that would effectively boost oil companies’ corporate income tax rate and increase royalty payments. Coal and nuclear advocates are pushing for additional loan guarantees and tax breaks. Beef and poultry producers that use corn feed hope to dilute incentives for corn-based ethanol.
Energy Bill Checklist
Crossposted at Daily Kos.
Last week I diaried on the key battles in the Senate energy bill, the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007 (SA 1502):
- No on Coal-to-Liquid
- No on restricting EPA or state regulation of motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases
- No on diluting definition of biofuels
- No on changing “renewable” to “alternative” in legislation
- No on offshore drilling
- Yes on strong CAFE standards (no on weakening further)
- Yes on price-gouging regulation (the right-wingers are fighting this hard)
- Yes on national Renewable Portfolio Standard of 15% by 2015, 20% by 2020 (if we’re lucky, we’ll get legislation for 15% by 2020)
- Yes on incentives for distributed generation (aka cogeneration, net metering, electranet) at the commercial and residential level
- Yes on support for energy efficiency, especially
- Yes on funding of The Weatherization Assistance Program
- Yes on funding renewable energy by removing some oil subsidies
So what were the results?
Here are the issues:
| ISSUE | RESULT |
| No on Coal-to-Liquid |  (Tester amdt. S.AMDT.1614 rejected 33-61, Bunning amdt. S.AMDT 1628 rejected 39-55) |
| No on restricting EPA or state regulation of motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases | |
| No on diluting definition of biofuels |  (Kyl amdt. S.AMDT.1800 rejected 45-49) |
| No on changing “renewable” to “alternative” in legislation | |
| No on offshore drilling | |
| Yes on strong CAFE standards (no on weakening further) | (Pryor-Bond-Levin-Stabenow amdt. S.AMDT. 1711 not considered) |
| Yes on price-gouging regulation (the right-wingers are fighting this hard) | (Title VI of S.AMDT.1502) |
| Yes on national Renewable Portfolio Standard of 15% by 2015, 20% by 2020 | (Bingaman amdt. S.AMDT.1537 withdrawn under filibuster threat) |
| Yes on incentives for distributed generation (aka cogeneration, net metering, electranet) at the commercial and residential level | (issue held for next round of energy legislation) |
| Yes on major increase in funding of The Weatherization Assistance Program (which Bush is trying to slash) | (Title II, Subtitle F of S.AMDT.1502) |
| Yes on funding renewable energy by removing some subsidies to oil industry | (Baucus amdt. S.AMDT.1704 filibustered 57-36) |
- while the CAFE standards are being increased, they are certainly not aggressive increases. Still, a lot better than the zero action the Bush administration and auto industry wanted.
- the increase to the Weatherization Assistance program is about 7%, instead of the 25% increase which would have had optimal results. Still, a lot better than the zeroing out that Bush wanted.