Before breaking for their August recess, both the House and Senate passed energy bills with a welcome focus on conservation and renewable energy. While that is encouraging, the final outcome is far from certain.

The House bill contains a renewable electricity standard that requires utilities to obtain at least 15 percent of their energy supplies from wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable sources by 2020. (See Proud to Praise ‘Em!) A similar provision failed in the Senate.

The Senate bill contains a provision to increase the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) for cars and light trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. The House bill does not address CAFE standards.

Conferencing these bills into one piece of legislation that can pass both houses—and be signed by the president—will be quite a challenge.

During consideration of the Senate energy bill, Senators Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski (both R-AK) quietly filed an amendment to turn the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into a “petroleum reserve.” However, thanks in large part to REP’s sounding the alarm—and to our members’ hitting the Senate with hundreds of messages in opposition—Stevens and Murkowski were forced to abandon the effort.

The House also passed a farm bill that mostly represents a missed opportunity for reform of the outdated commodity crop subsidy programs and for expansion of popular conservation incentive programs. The Senate will likely move its own version this fall.

Last but not least, a breakthrough on climate change legislation may finally be at hand. Senators John Warner (R-VA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) were tasked with developing a compromise proposal from the various climate bills that have been introduced. They recently rolled out their plan, which would reduce emissions to 10 percent below current levels by 2020, and to 70 percent below current levels by 2050. They plan to introduce a bill in September.