The US House approved an $8-bil energy bill Apr 21 that opens Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling and requires the use of 5-bil gal of renewable fuels in gasoline by 2010. The House vote was 249-183, with 22 Republicans voting against the bill. Critics say the measure would do little to slake the nation’s thirst for oil. The passage of the House bill is one of the opening steps in a long process to get a comprehensive energy bill passed in both houses of Congress and signed by the President. The last comprehensive energy legislation was passed in 1992.

The Senate will be next to act on an energy bill, which could be substantially different from the House version. If the Senate passes a bill, negotiators from both chambers will meet to work out differences, a process that could become sticky. The Senate and House have differences of opinion on several issues, including ANWR drilling, the bill’s costs, the amount of money allocated for renewable energy and conservation, and protection for MTBE producers from lawsuits. The House rejected an amendment that would have stripped the ANWR leasing provision. Senate leaders do not plan to include an ANWR leasing provision in their energy bill because of a likely filibuster. Instead, the Senate’s ANWR leasing language will be included in budget reconciliation legislation, which is not subject to a filibuster. The Senate energy bill has yet to be introduced.

 

The bill prohibits the use of MTBE in gasoline by 2015, and provides $1.8- bil over seven years to assist MTBE producers to convert their facilities to make other products such as ethanol.

In debates on late Apr 20 Republicans defeated a slew of Democratic amendments including an attempt by Sherwood Boehlert (Republican-New York) to increase fuel-economy standards for automobiles and one by Marcy Kaptur (Democrat-Ohio) that would have allowed the use of ethanol and other renewable fuels in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Though the bill included a 5-bil gallon corn-based ethanol mandate by 2012, it significantly did not mirror the renewable fuel targets outlined in the Fuels Security Act of 2005 - a bill brought to Congress Mar 17 by a bipartisan group of around two dozen House members to create a renewable fuels standard (RFS) mandating the use of 8 billion gallons of renewable fuels, including ethanol and biodiesel, by 2012, 3-bil more gallons than included in the current energy bill.

In addition to providing a “safe-harbor” for MTBE producers, the bill prohibits the use of MTBE in gasoline by 2015, and provides $1.8- bil over seven years to assist MTBE producers to convert their facilities to make other products such as ethanol. Individual states could ban the use of the additive prior to 2015, and a number already have done so.

 

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