Energy bill aims to power up ideas: Incentives, mandates and prizes included

 

Jun 13 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - William Neikirk Chicago Tribune

If you are smart enough to invent a bright, highly energy-efficient, solid-state "light package" to replace the 60-watt bulb, you might qualify for a $10 million federal prize. A similar invention to replace halogen bulbs could carry a $5 million award.

These "Bright Tomorrow Lighting Prizes" are part of a wide-ranging, ambitious Senate energy bill chock full of incentives and mandates designed to meet the nation's growing energy challenge.

"The idea is to spur really very efficient lights," said Lowell Ungar, senior policy analyst at the Alliance to Save Energy, a non-partisan group that works with business, government, educational and environmental officials.

Along with the bill's major proposals to require more renewable fuel, set higher gasoline mileage standards and punish price-gouging by oil companies, its fine print shows that Congress is turning to many such energy-saving and energy-producing ideas.

Senate leaders hope to pass the bill by the end of next week, but its fate is somewhat uncertain as President Bush has threatened a veto because of the price-gouging and other provisions.

Still, the legislation has many small-bore types of proposals, such as a block grant to states and localities to help them reduce energy use and improve the environment. No figure is specified for the program. Presumably, that would come in appropriations bills later.

Then there is the "bus idling" provision, a $5 million annual grant program to schools to educate them about "the benefits of reducing school bus idling and ways in which school bus idling may be reduced."

Energy waste and environmental damage from school bus idling can be substantial, Ungar said, but he added that truck idling is a much larger problem because many truck drivers often leave their vehicles running all night while they sleep.

Under the bill, a car able to attain more than 50 miles per gallon of gas would be eligible for a Gold Star label, a government imprimatur similar to Energy Star for appliances. The bill requires development of a national tire rating system to educate buyers, but there would be no tire efficiency labels.

And then there are appliances, which would be subject to new efficiency standards, many of them already worked out with manufacturers.

For instance, if you live in Chicago, you might have to pay much more for a new energy-efficient furnace than someone living in Atlanta, where brutal winters are a rarity, under proposed efficiency standards that for the first time would take regional weather differences into account.

Or if you buy a dishwasher or a clothes washer, you might have to purchase a machine that uses not only less energy but less water, all to meet a double mandate from the federal government.

Energy studies called for

The bill would call for the government to review appliance efficiency standards every seven years with an eye toward updating them in line with technological development.

The measure is replete with proposed new energy studies, many designed to encourage technological developments. There are studies proposed on biofuels, ethanol blending, transporting ethanol by pipeline, engine durability when biofuels are used and the use of ethanol blends in boats and off-road vehicles.

The bill authorizes an "advanced battery initiative" that would be established by the Department of Transportation, which would name a coalition of private U.S. battery manufacturers to look into making improvements on vehicle batteries. There would be national grants to the companies, national laboratories, small businesses and colleges -- but again, the amounts are not specified.

The Senate Democratic leadership hopes the 278-page bill can be passed by the end of next week. But the measure is expected to grow larger with amendments offered by Democrats and Republicans alike and tax provisions added later by the leadership.

The legislation would require greater use of alternative and renewable fuels such as ethanol and wind, make it easier to charge oil companies with price-gouging and mandate that automobiles and light trucks achieve a fleetwide average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The standard would be increased by 4 percent each succeeding year.

Though it has many elements supported by both parties, passage is by no means certain. Oil companies and the administration oppose the price-gouging provisions, with the White House already threatening a veto. The auto industry opposes the new mileage standards, and various senators want incentives for the nuclear industry or permission for more oil and gas drilling in U.S. coastal waters.

Fate depends on amendments

The measure reflects a more aggressive use of government power and incentives to address the energy challenge. A key element would sharply expand the amount of automobile fuel, home heating oil and boiler fuel derived from renewable biomass -- such as corn, cellulose from plants and switch grass -- from 8.5 billion gallons a year in 2008 to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

Bill Wicker, press secretary for the Senate Energy Committee, called it a "strong bipartisan piece of legislation" but said its fate would depend on amendments adopted on the floor.

Frank Masiano, a spokesman for independent refineries and other energy interests, said his clients oppose the renewable fuel standard on grounds that the technology for making cellulostic ethanol from plant waste has not been perfected.

The legislation also proposes funding for programs that could help reduce the amount of so-called greenhouse gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, that scientists say contribute to global warming. The secretary of energy would have to set up a demonstration program for capturing, or sequestering, carbon dioxide so that it does not get into the atmosphere. The government would provide awards for such storage projects, at a cost of $500 million over five years.

The ability to sequester carbon dioxide is seen as a crucial element in converting coal to liquid fuel without damaging the environment.

 

 

wneikirk@tribune.com

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The bill would:

--Require automakers to increase fuel economy of new vehicles to 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

--Require use of ethanol to more than quadruple by 2022.

--Make it unlawful to charge an "unconscionably excessive" price for oil products.

--Require new appliance and lighting efficiency standards.

--Promote research into fuel-efficient vehicles.

--Accelerate large demonstrations of carbon dioxide capture and geological storage from coal power plants.