[NukeNet] Update on Nukes in Energy Bill

[Mike Ewall]

 >From Kevin Kamps at Beyond Nuclear...

Thanks for spreading our action alert! It's still important to let
Members of Congress hear our opposition to the nuclear loan
guarantees, more important than ever right now.

I wanted to share the latest. See the Washington Post article below,
for the latest on the energy bill and the nuclear loan guarantee
provision.

It looks like we may (nor for certain) have beaten the nuclear loan
guarantees out of the energy bill set to be voted on by mid week next
week on the House floor. That's the good news (maybe!).

The bad news is, Domenici will now/would then try to attach his
extremist nuclear loan guarantee provision to the energy and water
appropriations bill. No rest for the weary, we'll have to remain
vigilant. The only silver lining I see is that Visclosky and Hobson,
the Democrat and Republican at the top of the House subcommittee for
energy and water appropriations, would be present behind those closed
doors, right along with Domenici himself (who is top Republican on the
Senate subcommittee for Energy and Water Approps). Even though
Visclosky and Hobson are both pro-nuclear power, they oppose
Domenici's extremist nuclear loan guarantee provision, or any
diminishment of Congressional Appropriators prerogatives' (as the less
extreme but still bad House version of Domenici's provision, sponsored
by Dingell and Upton of Michigan, would still do, by prohibiting
congressional appropriators from excluding nuclear power from loan
guarantees in a particular fiscal year, if they decide to do that).

If anyone has not yet seen the Visclosky and Hobson letter to Pelosi
urging that the nuclear loan guarantee provision be stripped out of
the energy bill, let me know and I'll forward it to you.

More bad news, this article reports that Reid might be willing to give
Domenici what he wants, in exchange for Domenici giving Reid a
renewable electricity standard. Don't you love how this stuff works?
We need to pressure Reid to oppose the unlimited nuclear loan
guarantees without congressional oversight -- especially considering
that new nuclear reactors would mean yet more high-level radioactive
waste, targeted at Yucca in Reid's State of Nevada. That would
increase the pressure to open the Yucca dump, and increase the
pressure to dump ever more waste at Yucca once opened.

Given Reid's openness to horse trade, I guess that also means he might
still try to force the nuclear loan guarantees be included in this
energy bill, because he really wants renewable electricity portfolio
standard in this energy bill. But the article mentions that all could
go into a separate bill as well. In short, we need to remain vigilant,
and keep calls, etc. pouring in to Capitol Hill.

Thanks.

Kevin, Beyond Nuclear

Negotiators Close In on Energy Measure
Bill Raises Ethanol, Efficiency Targets; Fuel Credits for Auto 
Industry at Issue
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 29, 2007; A04

Congressional negotiators are nearing agreement on the components of
an energy bill that would boost fuel efficiency standards for vehicles
and require vast increases in the use of biofuels, according to
congressional aides and lobbyists.

The auto industry and its champion, House Energy and Commerce
Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), have accepted the target
of achieving an average of 35 miles a gallon for each carmaker's fleet
of new U.S. vehicles by 2020, set in the version of the bill passed by
the Senate in June. However, Dingell and the automakers appeared to
have won concessions extending fuel efficiency credits for
flexible-fuel vehicles and creating separate mileage standards for
cars and light trucks.

Yesterday, Dingell was still weighing the details of a compromise
Senate proposal and pressing for further concessions. He was scheduled
to talk by phone late yesterday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.). Aides and lobbyists who agreed to discuss the negotiations
spoke on condition of anonymity because the two leaders had not yet
conferred.

Efforts to pass energy legislation have been dragging on all year. But
there was pressure to complete an agreement by yesterday or today
because congressional leaders want to bring the bill to a vote when
members return from recess next week, and a few days are needed to
hammer out the exact language. Moreover, with oil prices at more than
$90 a barrel, many lawmakers feel compelled to take some sort of
action on energy.

The two main and most likely features of the final bill are variations
of what the Senate adopted. In addition to the 35 mile-per-gallon
target for 2020, the Senate bill ramped up the requirement for
gasoline makers to use ethanol and other biofuels, to at least 13
billion gallons by 2012 and 36 billion gallons by 2022.

There has been one change in the biofuels measure. While the Senate
bill required that at least 3 billion gallons of "advanced biofuels"
derived from sources other than corn be used starting in 2016,
escalating to 21 billion gallons by 2022, new language would require
that the first advanced biofuels be used in 2013. That might ease
demand for corn, which has soared in price, and recognize that
companies are making progress in using new feedstocks in pilot
projects.

Many elements that were in the version of the energy bill passed in
August by the House -- such as a requirement for utilities to use
minimum amounts of renewable fuels and a rollback of the oil
industry's share of a tax break for manufacturers -- seemed unlikely
to be included, congressional sources said.

One congressional aide said that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-Nev.) said he had the 60 votes needed to toughen fuel economy
standards and the 60 votes for renewable energy standards for
utilities, "but unfortunately they are not the same 60 votes."

The excluded items and other controversial energy issues could be
moved to other bills. Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) is still pushing
to lift limits on loan guarantees that could benefit nuclear power
plants, but that would probably be part of an energy and water
appropriations bill.

Though critics of Domenici's efforts said he would undermine
government credit reform enacted in the early 1990s, key congressional
aides said Reid might go along with his proposal if he needs votes to
win passage of renewable portfolio standards in the energy bill or a
separate bill later.

Because of concern about the cost of the energy bill, the extension of
tax breaks for renewable energy, such as wind and solar, is expected
to be left out of it and perhaps inserted in a bill extending a wide
variety of tax provisions, congressional negotiators said.

Companies in the wind and solar energy businesses have been lobbying
hard for the extension of production tax credits worth about 1.9 cents
a kilowatt hour. The credits are set to expire at the end of 2008, but
companies said they need an extension to plan new projects.

"If that goes away, you'll see a shrinkage in the size of the industry
at time when we need fuel diversity," said Peter C. Duprey, chief
executive of Acciona Energy North America, a unit of a big Spanish
corporation expanding in the U.S. wind and solar markets.

Despite their self-imposed deadline, congressional negotiators were
continuing to bargain yesterday afternoon, with fuel efficiency at
center stage.

Key differences remained over the size and duration of the flex-fuel
credits, which allow auto companies calculating fuel efficiency to
factor in potential savings from vehicles capable of burning E85,
which contains 85 percent ethanol, even though only 1 or 2 percent of
those vehicles actually use E85. Auto companies want that provision,
now set to expire in 2009, extended through 2020, while Senate
negotiators wanted to phase it out earlier.

Critics said the flex-fuel vehicle credit is a loophole that could
effectively lower mileage standards by as much as 1.2 miles a gallon
and add more than 100,000 barrels a day to U.S. gasoline consumption.
They argue that automakers can adapt existing vehicles at a cost of
just $50 to $100 each.

"This loophole is bad policy and it should be killed, not extended,"
said David Friedman, a senior analyst at the Union of Concerned
Scientists.

Carmakers said the credit is needed to guarantee that the auto fleet
is able to consume all the ethanol that will be produced under new
requirements in the energy bill. They argue that if all cars used E10
-- fuel containing 10 percent ethanol -- the new biofuel mandate would
produce unusable surpluses after 2014.

Dingell is also pressing for a provision that would take the
responsibility for regulating tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide
away from the Environmental Protection Agency and give it to the
Transportation Department's National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration.

Last week, Chrysler circulated a paper arguing that tailpipe emissions
were linked to fuel efficiency standards NHTSA oversees. But earlier
this year, the Supreme Court said the EPA has the power to regulate
carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, and congressional
sources said it was unlikely that the auto companies would prevail.





Kevin Kamps
Radioactive Waste Watchdog
Beyond Nuclear
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 400
Takoma Park, Maryland 20912

Office phone: (301) 270-2209
Cell phone: (240) 462-3216
Fax: (301) 270-4000
kevin at beyondnuclear.org
www.beyondnuclear.org