August
- September 2001
The
U.S. Energy Package: Many Issues, Many Opinions
On 1 August, the
House approved H.R. 4, a comprehensive energy package by a vote of
240-189. Observers credited "aggressive lobbying" by the
White House, labor unions and the oil, gas and coal industries with
shepherding the bill through. An Administration task force, headed by Vice
President Dick Cheney, made many of the recommendations included in
the bill. This task force got
effective aid in securing passage from various interest groups,
including the Teamsters (International Brotherhood of Teamsters), the
United Auto Workers, and other unions, who argued that
increased oil, gas and coal production on public lands would create
jobs.
ANWR Exploration
One bill provision
is an agreement to allow limited oil and gas exploration in the Arctic
National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR). Environmental groups found
themselves outgunned in efforts to bar such exploration. Rep. Edward
Markey (D-Mass.), who opposed ANWR exploration and sponsored the
proposal to ban it, said "it was a tough coalition to beat — the
oil and gas industry, the building trades, the President of the United
States, and millions of dollars of lobbying." In promoting the
bill, the Teamsters sponsored a series of radio ads that claimed that
opening the Arctic reserve to oil and gas exploration would create
750,000 jobs; environmentalists have disputed this claim.
Another opponent,
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), said the legislation does nothing to
prepare the United States for long-run needs. It costs $34 billion
"without any offset to pay for it." He called on the
Administration to focus instead on conservation and energy efficiency;
energy conservation, he said, is more than a personal virtue. He also
called the bill "a direct assault on the environment by
attempting to open up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to drilling — at
a tremendous cost of 160 species of birds and various other
animals."
Corporate Average
Fuel Economy Standards
Rep. Sherwood
Boehlert (R-N.Y.) lost out on a proposal to increase Corporate Average
Fuel Economy standards (CAFÉ). He claimed that automakers can improve
energy efficiency and cited a National Academy of Sciences study of
fuel efficiency that stated that higher fuel economy can be achieved
"without degradation of safety."
Boehlert said the
question boils down to whose arguments are the most persuasive.
"Do we believe the automobile industry, which told us in the 1970s
that mandating seatbelt use, which has saved thousands of lives since,
would deal a devastating blow to automakers and force massive layoffs?
Or do we believe the National Academy of Sciences, which issued a
report that said reasonable CAFÉ standards…would bring major
benefits without compromising safety?" In quoting from the
Academy's report, he added that such standards "should provide
enhanced levels of occupant protection."
FERC Provisions
Rejected
The House rejected
some of the provisions recommended in the energy package, including:
- Authority for the
Federal Regulatory Commission (FERC) to regulate natural gas
pipelines in California
- A requirement
that FERC limit wholesale electricity rates in the western United
States to rates based on cost of service for 18 months.
FERC Chair Curt
L. Herbert, Jr. announced recently that he is leaving his job.
Herbert, who served on regulatory boards in Mississippi, will resign
sometime in August. He opposed price caps on the California market,
saying the state should take responsibility for its high electricity
prices because it did not build enough power plants and "botched
electricity deregulation." The California governor, Democrat Gray
Davis, welcomed Herbert's resignation.
A Long-Term Fix?
House member James
Matheson (D-Utah) believes technology is the answer to energy policy
in the long run — "technology that finds better ways for
us to make energy from existing sources, technology that finds ways to
produce energy from new sources, and technology that helps us use
energy more efficiently,"
The energy package
legislation faces an uncertain outcome in the Senate. Sen. John Kerry
(D-Mass.) has already announced his intent to filibuster any bill that
allows exploration of the ANWR.
On a Related Note…Electricity
Deregulation and Reliability
IEEE-USA has
commented on charges that relate to electric utility deregulation,
saying that deregulation poses "fundamental challenges to the
reliability of the electric power system." The IEEE-USA statement,
issued to Members of Congress on 23 May 2001, says that capacity, control and operation of the
transmission system are inadequate for supporting a fully competitive
market. It said that the major technological challenge of
restructuring is to develop better ways to operate transmission
systems. "New and improved transmission, communication, control,
and metering technologies and systems need to be developed for the new
structure of the electrical system to succeed."
IEEE-USA recommended
that Congress and the White House act to "create an impartial,
self-managing electric reliability organization with the authority to
develop new national reliability rules and practices that all
organizations and companies participating in the electric power
marketplace must meet." (For related discussion on the ERO concept, see Rick
Cordaro's lead article in this issue of Policy Perspectives.)
Edith T. Carper is a
special correspondent to IEEE-USA Policy Perspectives.
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