Washington (Platts)--26Mar2009

A bill introduced by leaders of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee to help improve energy efficiency in the US manufacturing sector
would provide timely assistance as companies rebound from an economic
recession and respond to likely government mandates to control greenhouse gas
emissions, witnesses told the panel Thursday.

Stephen Harper, the global director of environment and energy policy at
Intel, said the bill (S. 661), would especially benefit small- and medium-size
companies, which collectively comprise the bulk of US manufacturing.

"Smaller companies often do not have the internal resources to identify
and seize many of the available energy efficiency opportunities and stand to
benefit significantly," Harper said in remarks prepared for a hearing on the
bill.

Harper said improving energy efficiency in the manufacturing sector,
which accounted for nearly one-third of US energy consumption in 2007, would
help companies cope with federal mandates for reductions in GHG emissions.

"Domestic climate regulations will impose manufacturing costs that
competitors in the developing world will not face, at least to the same
extent, in the immediate future," Harper said. "But increasing the energy
efficiency of manufacturing can help re-level the industrial playing field."

The bill -- introduced by the energy committee's chairman, Senator
Jeff Bingaman, the panel's senior Republican, Senator Lisa Murkowski, and
eight other senators -- would provide the US Department of Energy with
additional grant authority to promote development of more energy efficient
technologies useful to the manufacturing sector and would expand a department
program that provides plants with energy assessments. It also would link those
assessments to Small Business Administration Loans.

Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, and Murkowski, an Alaska Republican,
plan to have the committee consider the bill as part of comprehensive energy
legislation the panel will start voting on next week.

--Bill Loveless, bill_loveless@platts.com