Though Congress was on recess the past two weeks, energy committee staff and leadership continued their negotiations on a final "energy independence" bill, in the hope that it would be brought to the House floor in early December and subsequently to the Senate.
The situation is very fluid, and, in a somewhat surprising move, over the weekend House and Senate leadership decided that they are going to bring one comprehensive energy bill to the floor for a vote and it will include a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and a tax title.
As of Friday afternoon (11/30), key staff and others were reporting that the bill would not contain a federal RPS or a tax title, as apparently neither has the 60 votes needed in the Senate to avoid a filibuster. It was thought that these two issues would be combined into a separate "message bill" that would be voted on at a later date and would pass in the House but die in the Senate.
However, over the weekend, after a deal was struck on the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for vehicles, Democratic leadership apparently decided that it would try to force a vote on the remaining controversial issues (RPS and tax) to see where the votes actually lie, before conceding that they do not have them and removing the RPS and tax language. If, in fact, Senate leadership is unable to overcome a filibuster (which requires 60 votes), then they will amend the bill as needed and send it back to the House for another vote.
As a reminder, the House-passed energy bill contains an RPS that exempts federal, municipal and cooperative utilities. The Senate bill is silent on an RPS, but Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) continued to support a program that would draw in munis and coops that sell more than 4 million megawatt hours of energy per year at retail.
The $16 billion tax title in the House bill is controversial because it gives tax incentives to a range of renewable energy technologies, and "pays for" those incentives by eliminating existing incentives for the oil and gas industry; there is no tax title in the Senate bill. The Senate Finance Committee approved about a $30 billion package that "pays for" renewable incentives in a similar fashion, but it was held from the bill by Senators from oil and gas states. This has prompted a number of Senators to say that they will not vote for the bill if the House tax title is included.
Draft texts of the revised bill are "leaking out," and it appears that the RPS provision included is the House-passed language, with one modification: that the exempt utilities will not be entitled to receive any credits they might otherwise have gotten under the bill unless they voluntarily "opt-in" to the program. The details of the tax title have not been released, other than that it is a $21 billion package and repeals $13 billion in incentives for the oil and gas industry to pay for renewable incentives.
As far as schedule, it is expected to go to the House floor as early as Wednesday or Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has not indicated when it might go to the Senate floor. In addition, on December 3, the White House sent a second letter to Speaker Pelosi indicating the President would veto a bill with an RPS, among other items.