Expansive Energy Bill Advances In Congress

A Senate energy bill was voted out of committee yesterday, but not before losing the support of two Democrats and a dozen leading environmental organizations. The measure would be the third energy bill in four years -- not counting the huge energy provisions in this year's economic stimulus bill. Like the others, it is rife with controversy over new offshore drilling plans near Florida, the sharing of federal offshore oil and gas royalties, and a mandate for renewable energy that alternative-energy executives and environmentalists say is too weak. It would require 15 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources by 2021, but would allow exemptions that would diminish that target. The proposed bill would also create a new "clean energy" financing agency that would extend subsidized loans and loan guarantees to a variety of projects, including nuclear plants. But a dozen environmental groups yesterday said they opposed it. In a joint letter to the committee, they called the renewable-electricity standard too lax because it allows noncompliance fees to go back to companies, exempts new nuclear plants and certain new coal plants from baseline calculations, and allows energy-efficiency savings to substitute for renewable energy. The groups also said allowing offshore oil and gas drilling so close to the west coast of Florida would "put Florida's coastal economies and wildlife further at risk." The environmental group Friends of the Earth, one of the 12 signatories, separately said that a lack of oversight could turn the "clean energy deployment agency" into a "giant slush fund for nuclear and coal projects."...WPost