In drive for climate bill, Reid is all energy

To what extent the climate has changed on Capitol Hill under Democratic control may become clearer this week as the Senate debates energy policy, a topic that has tied previous Congresses in knots.

With the backdrop of high gasoline prices and the growing worry about global warming, Senate Democratic leaders are pushing a bill to reduce demand for oil by raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks and requiring utilities to get more of their electricity from “climate friendly” renewable sources like wind and solar power.

{mosads}Like the immigration bill before it, the measure, which would also require production of “alternative” fuels, will attract dozens of amendments from both parties. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who would like a vote on the bill later this week, is trying keep amendments that would cap greenhouse gas emissions out of the debate.

Even so, the bill’s success isn’t assured. Reid said in a broad energy speech yesterday that he expected a plan to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks to 36 miles per gallon by 2020 to generate the most heated debate.

“It’s an issue that we’ve tried — we have nine new Democratic senators, and we’re hoping as a result that we’ll be able to get enough votes to put us over the hump,” Reid said.

Executives of the Big Three automakers met with lawmakers last week to make their case that the standard were too aggressive, apparently to some effect. A measure to require large trucks to meet an annual efficiency improvement of 4 percent was dropped this weekend, one lobbyist said.

Still, the industry contends the targets in the bill, crafted in the Senate Commerce Committee, are too aggressive. The targets “could have a devastating impact on the industry,” said Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

CAFE standards for cars haven’t been raised in over a decade. The auto industry continues to be a powerful force on Capitol Hill, but broadening worry about energy security issues has expanded support for requiring cars to get more bang for the buck when it comes to gasoline.

 Groups like the Energy Security Leadership Council have put the imprimatur of big business and the military on an issue once limited to automakers and environmental groups.

The council launched a television advertising campaign yesterday in support of higher fuel efficiency standards.

“The nation’s excessive level of oil dependence represents a direct and urgent threat to American economic and national security,” said Gen. P.X. Kelley, the 28th commandant of the US Marine Corps, in a statement. Kelly and Frederick Smith, chairman and president of FedEx Corp., are co-chairmen of the group.

Underscoring the odd alliances energy can often create, Republican senators like Ted Stevens of Alaska and Larry Craig of Idaho have supported increasing CAFE standards, as a security issue rather than a climate one.

The main opposition to the bill will likely come from the Michigan delegation, though both senators are Democrats. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) is expected to offer an amendment that set less aggressive targets.

Reid said he was not sure which side would win.

Another fight is likely over the so-called renewable portfolio standard. As written by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman, Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), an RPS would require utilities get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar power by 2020.

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), the ranking Republican, plans to introduce a competing measure that would raise the standard to 20 percent. To meet that target, however, utilities could count nuclear and hydropower or energy efficiency gains toward the target. And states could opt out of the mandate.  

A spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute said the industry is “very intrigued” by the proposal.

Marchant Wentworth of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) called the Domenici’s proposal a “major step back” from the pro-renewable bill Bingaman has authored and UCS supports.

The National Mining Association, meanwhile, is backing an amendment that is likely to be offered by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) that would provide government incentives to produce transportation fuels from coal.

Moveon.org, a group often aligned with Democrats, urged members to call their senators in opposition to federal support for coal-to-liquid technology.

In another example of the expanding constituencies tracking energy legislation, a group of 15 food groups wrote members to oppose the bill for another reason: a mandate that calls for the production of 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels each year by 2022. Less than 7 billion gallons of renewable fuels are currently produced a year.

Most of the new fuel would have to come from “advanced biofuels.” That definition doesn’t include corn-based ethanol, which accounts for nearly all of the renewable fuels produced currently. Still, farm groups blame an existing renewable fuels mandate with raising the price of corn, which farmers use to feed their livestock, and oppose the new mandate.

“We are concerned that the aggressive increase in biofuels mandates contained in the Senate legislation raises fundamental concerns and questions about the impact that an increased federal government mandate for corn-based ethanol will have on the livestock and food industry’s ability to produce competitively available, affordable food,” the group said in a letter. The companies and groups that signed the letter include H.J. Heinz, the National Chicken Council, National Pork Producers Council, and the National Turkey Federation.    

Worth Hager has resigned from the National Waterways Conference (NWC), a group of that supports federal support for the development of water infrastructure.

A letter from conference Chairman Scott Robinson that announced Hager’s resignation referred to “growing concern about the internal management of NWC among past and present officers, committee chairmen and others.”

Robinson said Hager had discussed the possibility of stepping down from managing the conference to focus on lobbying. Hager declined to comment on the reason for her departure.  

Manu Raju contributed to this article.