The US Congress is gone. Some in the country, even within the ranks of lawmakers themselves, wish the five-week vacation--they prefer "state work period"--would last forever. It will not, but at least for a while it will be hard to tell.
Despite a handful of bills waiting for action to address energy issues in the US, many senators and congressmen have checked out until after the election in November, hoping they will be in a better position to leverage the change they want.
How about a bill that sets a framework for disposing of tons of nuclear waste languishing at nuclear power plants across the country? That can wait. Fixing the tenuous cybersecurity of the US electricity grid? Don't worry, it will be OK for awhile. And the extension of tax incentives--set to expire at the end of the year--that the wind industry has said are critical? Whatever.
As temperatures closed in on 100 degrees in Washington, DC, last week, Congress gabbed at length about those issues. Some committees even passed some bills. But the chances of anything passing out of the full Congress and becoming law before November is approaching zero.
Last week Senator Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and is set to retire at the end of the year, unveiled his long-anticipated nuclear-waste bill. But after months of discussions, he failed to gain the support of three other key senators with whom he was working on the draft legislation.
"I recognize, of course, that the bill will not become law this year," he said. "But my hope is to obtain testimony on it and to build a legislative record that might serve as the foundation for further consideration and ultimate enactment in the next Congress."
The Senate last week also failed to pass a broad cybersecurity bill that would have required the federal government to share more threat information with energy and other companies, as well as calling on companies to voluntarily participate in cybersecurity standards.
Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, blamed Republicans for the cybersecurity bill's failure to attract enough votes.
"Despite a unanimous chorus of national security leaders demanding urgent action, Republicans recklessly obstructed cybersecurity legislation today, filibustering it with irrelevant, political amendments that serve no purpose other than catering to the Tea Party," he said.
If simple partisan bickering and election year politicking weren't reason enough for to stall legislation, add to that pressure to deal with the national debt.
The issue cropped up last week during a Senate Finance Committee meeting to debate a bill that would extend tax incentives for renewable power, among other things. The bill would extend the production tax credit for wind power and other renewables for a year past its current expiration date at the end of 2012. The wind industry has said its extension is crucial to keep projects on track and to avoid worker layoffs.
While the bill passed in a bipartisan vote Thursday, 19-5, it saw four and a half hours of debate, and 112 proposed amendments. In a shining moment of optimism, Reid said Tuesday he was confident a tax-extenders bill would pass Congress by the end of the year.
But on the one issue where the Senate is trying to get something done, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is poised to slow things down. Republican leaders in the House have yet to craft their own tax-credit extension bill, and have said they may not complete work on the package until after the elections.
One of the few amendments that was successfully added to the Senate bill came from Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, which would limit tax incentives for electric motorcycles and three-wheeled electric vehicles to those manufactured for highway use. The amendment is intended to close a loophole that allowed golf carts to qualify for the tax credit.
But some on the panel argued that any tax incentives for those vehicles at all would unnecessarily increase the national debt.
"[When we go over the fiscal cliff], do we really want to be riding on the back of an electric motorcycle? I don't think so," said Senator Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican.
When asked when the bill could go to a vote in the full Senate, Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat and the committee chairman, said he hoped it would come up last Thursday or Friday, before the August recess. That did not happen.
To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.platts.com