Morgan Meguire News

In the House, several committees are working on pieces of an energy package that the Speaker wants to bring to the floor for a vote before the 4^th of July recess.

The Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) plans to mark-up a multi-title bill next week.  The bill addresses alternative fuels, vehicle efficiency standards, appliance efficiency standards, "smart grid" technologies and loan guarantees for advanced energy facilities, such as projects that capture and sequester carbon. The Boucher bill is controversial because it provides incentives for development of coal-to-liquid fuels, as well as for biofuels.  In addition, a number of Democratic committee members object to provisions in the bill that would prevent states and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from setting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions restrictions for tailpipe emissions and to the relatively modest increases required in vehicle fuel efficiency standards.

Last week, Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Tom Allen (D-ME) joined ten other Democrats on the committee in a letter to full Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) and subcommittee chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA), expressing strong concerns about these transportation fuel provisions.

The House Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV), is in the process of marking up its portions of the energy bill.  The Resources committee is expected to complete action this week.  Highlights of the bill include:

• Repeal of Section 368 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that directed five federal agencies to jointly designate pipeline and transmission corridors on federal lands. The bill substitutes a study of the need for such designations, and will severely limit the location of designated corridors and require the maximum level of mitigation practicable for such corridors. APPA and EEI opposed these provisions of the bill;
• Approval of an amendment by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) to eliminate many provisions in the original Rahall draft that were opposed by the wind industry. Although the Markey amendment was supported by wind advocates, concerns remain about the provisions;
• Adoption of an amendment by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (D-WA) that recognized "large and small conventional hydropower" as a renewable resource, in the context of the corridor study noted above. The amendment will require federal agencies to consider hydropower in addition to wind and solar when studying barriers to access to transmission by renewable resources; and
• Provisions to: 1) create a national inventory of locations for storage of carbon dioxide and authorize carbon storage and sequestration research; 2) require the Department of the Interior to mitigate the effects of climate change on wildlife; and 3) require reports on the effects of climate change on ocean and coastal ecosystems and coastal communities.

The Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) planned originally to mark up its energy tax bill tomorrow (6/13).  Mark-up is now delayed to allow Democrats on the committee to further refine the bill.

Of particular interest to NEPPA, is the inclusion of the Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) program.  According to Democrats on the Committee, the Chairman's mark includes an extension of the CREB program, with a $2 billion volume cap ($1.2 billion for municipal utilities and $800 million for cooperative utilities), as well as significant technical modification to the CREB program.

The overall package is expected to total close to $20-$25 billion in energy tax incentives with revenue offsets coming from the repeal of current tax incentives available to large multi-national oil companies.  Republican opposition to the offsets has eliminated any effort to advance a bi-partisan title in the Ways and Means Committee; therefore, Democrats are caucusing individually, and will advance a bill most likely sometime next week.