Pork Chop Energy Bill

Roscoe Bartlett (MD)
Sherwood Boehlert (NY)
Jeb Bradley (NH)
Mike Castle (DE)
Vern Ehlers (MI)
Michael Fitzpatrick (PA)
Jeff Flake (AZ)
Jim Gerlach (PA)
Wayne Gilchrest (MD)
Bob Inglis (SC)
Nancy Johnson (CT)
Walter Jones (NC)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Jim Leach (IA)
Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
Ron Paul (TX)
Ed Royce (CA)
Jim Saxton (NJ)
Joe Schwarz (MI)
Christopher Shays (CT)
Christopher Smith (NJ)
Zach Wamp (TN)

Here’s why we believe the House-passed energy bill is bad legislation:

CONTINUED OIL DEPENDENCE

The House bill fails to start phasing down dependence on oil, the central energy problem facing our nation. It contains no fuel efficiency provisions, opens the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and plunges deeply into taxpayers’ pockets to shower subsidies on mature energy industries. Even President Bush agrees that the oil industry does not need handouts when oil is $60 per barrel.

HOSTILITY TO EFFICIENCY

The House bill is not just indifferent to energy efficiency, but seems downright hostile to it—a strange kind of positioning for so-called “conservatives.”

Here’s what our Republican-led House majority refused to support:

• an amendment to increase motor vehicle fuel economy standards from 25 to 33 mpg by 2015, which would save 2 million barrels of oil per day by 2020;

• an amendment requiring the federal government to find ways to cut oil use by 1 million barrels a day by 2013, less than 5% of current usage; and

• an amendment to fix inaccurate fuel economy claims on new car stickers by revising the dated 1970s-era testing methods and assumptions still used by EPA.

This ain’t conservatism, folks.

Click here to see who voted “right” on each amendment.

LACK OF BALANCE

The House bill puts far too much emphasis on oil and gas (both of which are subject to increasingly-volatile market forces) and not enough emphasis on providing a wider range of energy choices that would mean less exposure to price run-ups and dodgy foreign regimes.

The oil and gas provisions include a waiver of Clean Water Act controls on hydraulic fracturing, a process that pumps chemicals under high pressure into gas formations to loosen up the rocks and persuade the gas molecules to flow into pipelines. No Clean Water Act protection means “frac’ers” are free to expose groundwater to chemical contamination.

Also, oil and gas are the predominant beneficiaries of the $8 billion in tax incentives. A scant $500 million goes to energy efficiency.


REP Has a Better Idea

For years, we’ve been pushing for greater energy efficiency and diversity —including more renewables.

Greater efficiency is the key to a smarter energy policy, because you need the efficiency to make a more diverse energy portfolio work. It also just makes better business sense.

We need efficiency across the board: greater efficiency in motor vehicles to lessen dependence on oil; greater efficiency in buildings, appliances and other equipment that use electricity.

Without greater efficiency, we will keep chasing our tails trying to keep oil and gas flowing from dwindling domestic fields. There will be more pressure to do bad, un-conservative things... dig up Western lands used by ranchers, sacrifice heritage areas, trample on local governments, keep exporting money that supports unsavory regimes, and set ourselves up for increasing international conflicts with other oil importing nations.


Senate Bill Better... Sort Of

On June 16, the Senate passed a renewable energy portfolio standard by a vote of 52-48. Bully for the nine Republicans who voted for it:

Sam Brownback (KS)
Lincoln Chafee (RI)
Norman Coleman (MN)
Susan Collins (ME)
John Ensign (NV)
Charles Grassley (IA)
Gordon Smith (OR)
Olympia Snowe (ME)
Arlen Specter (PA)

The standard, which was included as an amendment to the Senate energy bill, requires utilities to obtain at least 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.

On the other hand... the Senate rejected 53-47 an amendment to cut oil imports 40 percent by 2025.
Three cheers for the three courageous Republicans who supported that amendment:

Lincoln Chafee (RI)
Olympia Snowe (ME)
Arlen Specter (PA)

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R, TN) made a lame joke about forcing people to ride Segways.

Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R, NM) said it simply can’t be done.

Such inspiring leadership.


Pombo's Tongass Trickery

Last year, after the Forest Service spent $49 million subsidizing the timber industry in our magnificent Tongass National Forest in Alaska—with only $800,000 in revenue to show for it—the House passed an amendment to the Interior appropriations bill banning taxpayer-subsidized, money-losing logging in the Tongass. The amendment was dropped from the final bill, however.

This year, fiscal conservatives, led by Representative Steve Chabot (R, OH), were set to try again. Chabot and others clearly had the votes needed to prevail again in an up-or-down vote. Then came Pombo.

House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R, CA) blocked an up-or-down vote on the matter by concocting a claim that the amendment violated House rules on appropriations amendments. Of course, the exact same amendment did not violate those rules last year.

The fiscal conservatives then looked to the Senate, where Senators John Sununu (R, NH), John McCain (R, AZ) and Jeff Bingaman (D, NM) brought up a similar amendment. 

Although supported by Senators Chafee, McCain and Sununu, the amendment failed by a vote of 59-39 after Senator Ted Stevens (R, AK) had a temper tantrum on the Senate floor, calling the amendment an unjust attack on Alaska and the timber industry. Because of it, he said, “none of our forests are safe. No forest can afford to sit idly by.”

Hmmmm.


Critters in Jeopardy, Part 1

While Rep. Pombo has been as busy as a beaver razing America’s largest rainforest, this apparently has not evoked any solidarity with actual beavers, or any other wild critter. While he was doing his Tongass two-step on the House floor, his aides in the Resources Committee were busy drafting legislation to undermine—and ultimately repeal—the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Pombo is a long-time opponent of the act and his draft “reform” bill (which was apparently leaked out by an ESA-friendly Republican office) would totally eviscerate the law by:

• eliminating the ESA requirement to recover endangered species;

• requiring that a species be at the brink of extinction everywhere in order to be listed;

• reducing the protection of threatened species;

• eliminating the protection of critical habitat areas;

• diverting agency conservation funds to pay landowner “compensation;” and

• impeding conservation efforts with layers of bureaucratic hurdles.

If that was not brazen enough, the pro-developer bill would repeal the ESA in the year 2015. This unprecedented assault on one of the Nixon-era environmental pillars should send chills down the spines of all conservation-minded Republicans.

Pombo has expressed his intent to expedite this bill in the Resources Committee and send it to the House floor for a final vote soon after.

Please check the REP website to follow the status of the fast-moving threat and help us defeat it!


Critters in Jeopardy, Part 2

Since January 2001, REP has noted with amazement the number of people with mind-boggling conflicts of interest appointed by Interior Secretary Gale Norton. At this point, we shouldn’t be surprised at anything from the ever-smiling Norton. But still, it’s remarkable how she keeps appointing to key environmental positions people with such flagrant histories of working for anti-environmental organizations and industries.

The latest jaw-dropping example is Norton’s March 17 appointment of Matthew Hogan, a lobbyist for the Safari Club, as acting director of the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Not ever to be confused with the Sierra Club... the Safari Club is a trophy-hunting group that specializes in helping its members kill rare species around the world.

Among the things that Hogan has lobbied Congress for on behalf of the Safari Club were efforts to weaken the Endangered Species Act and allow increased importation of stuffed trophies of exotic and endangered species.

What makes this appointment especially remarkable is the way it circumvents congressional oversight. “Interim” agency heads do not have to go through the same congressional confirmation process that permanent heads do.

We’ll be curious to see how long this “interim” appointment lasts.