http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington ... bill_x.htm

House approves energy bill
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House approved a broad energy bill Thursday aimed at boosting domestic production, including provisions to allow oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge and to shield makers of a gasoline additive from water contamination lawsuits.

The largely Republican crafted bill was approved 249-183 after two days in which the GOP majority turned back repeated attempts by Democrats to add measures they said would reduce energy use, including a proposal for higher automobile fuel economy requirements.

The bill includes $12 billion in tax breaks and subsidies for energy companies, more than the Bush administration said it wanted. Nevertheless the White House strongly endorsed the measure.

"This is a comprehensive piece of legislation and it does address one of the fundamental problems facing our nation and that is that we are growing more dependent on foreign sources of energy," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Democrats argued that it would have little impact on U.S. reliance on oil imports and failed to address high gasoline and other energy prices.

Contentious issues during debate involved the gasoline additive, MTBE. The bill calls for shielding MTBE makers from product liability lawsuits stemming from contamination of drinking water supplies. Democrats warned the liability waiver would leave the public with billions of dollars in cleanup costs.

An attempt by Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., to strip the MTBE assistance from the energy bill was defeated, 219-213.

Capps said groundwater contamination from the gasoline additive has affected more than 1,800 community water systems in 29 states with a potential cleanup cost of $29 billion. MTBE makers, including large oil companies and refiners, dispute that estimate but have argued they need liability protection because of an expected surge in lawsuits.

The MTBE provision has been a top priority of Majority Leader Tom DeLay and Rep. Joe Barton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who argue that Congress endorsed the widespread use of the additive when it required gasoline contain an oxygenate to help clean up the air.

Both are from Texas where major MTBE manufacturers are located.

The energy bill would shield these companies from lawsuits claiming that MTBE is a defective product and that the companies knew all along it would cause water contamination problems. At least 80 lawsuits involving MTBE have been filed.

The bill also calls for phasing out MTBE use by the end of 2014 — longer than MTBE critics say is necessary — and would provide $2 billion over eight years to help the manufacturers shift away from making the additive.

"They're not giving MTBE manufacturers a slap on the wrist. They're giving them a pat on the back," said Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California where MTBE contamination has been widespread. "It is the taxpayers who are stuck with the bill."

The MTBE issue was blamed for blocking approval of energy legislation in the Senate in 2003 as Democrats waged a filibuster against the provision. It is expected to cause a problem with the bill in the Senate again.

The White House expressed reservations about the extent of subsidies and tax breaks for oil and gas companies, particularly $2 billion for research into deep water oil and gas development.

DeLay, who has been fighting allegations of unethical conduct involving his travels and other issues, has been the primary force behind both the MTBE industry assistance and money for deep-water drilling research.

The administration believes the energy bill should not contain any new taxpayer subsidies for oil-and-gas exploration, said the president's Office of Management and Budget.

Democrats denounced the overall bill as a giveaway to traditional energy industries.

It is "clearly designed to help energy companies make more money, not help the American people save money," Pelosi told reporters, describing the bill as "anti-consumer, anti-taxpayer and anti-environment."

House Republican leaders said the bill reflects an attempt to diversify energy production and ease dependence on foreign oil by producing more energy at home.

By a vote of 231-200, the House late Wednesday rejected an attempt to strip from the bill a section to allow oil drilling on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska. The House has given the go-ahead for drilling there twice in the past four years, only to see the issue die in the Senate each time.

The bill calls for $8.1 billion in tax breaks over 10 years, most of it going to promote the coal, nuclear, oil and natural gas industries. In addition it calls for $2 billion over 10 years to fund research into oil and gas recovery in extremely deep areas of the Gulf of Mexico.

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Awesome, nothing like giving more huge subsidies to coal, nuclear, oil, and natural gas industries. This will surely help us ween ourselves off of fossil fuels. Time to see if the Senate is any wiser... I'm placing my bets on no.

And for those of you who say things like "wind and solar will be used more when they become as cost-effective", here is a prime reason why that statement is naive. Take out subsidies and wind is the cheapest source of energy there is - but we're not dealing with anything remotely similar to a free market.

.yep.

We'll see if we ever actually see any of this oil at the pumps in the US versus getting stored as "Reserves", making all these people's bank accounts bigger while we still suck oil out of the middle east.

$2.69 for Regular Unleaded where I live. 22 years ago that was the price of the Supreme unleaded and that price was only at Union 76.

At this rate, when I'm 62, I will not be able to afford to drive a car.

c-

Pathetic. How long will Americans let their representatives fuck them over?

We will let our representatives fuck us over for as long as special interest groups and corporations give represenatives campaign money and are then indebted to represent those contributors over the needs of the greater citizenry.

Is citizenry a word?

c-

Well, nuclear could help in the weening process, but I'm not too sure if you want that.

Anyhoo, govt' subsidies suck.

Scott, any news if wind power is getting any help on the state or local level?

I don't get it. What's wrong with MTBE? MTBE helps gas mileage in high elevations.

http://www.epa.gov/mtbe/gas.htm

And is the MTBE lawsuits because of leaking underground storage tanks??? THAT IS NOT AN ADDITIVE PROBLEM!!!!

I would have thought the source of the energy was a bigger problem than which country it comes from..... and as such, wouldn't everyone be better served with a bill calling for an increase in the proportion of energy which comes from renewable sources?

But.... that means fewer kick backs from oil companies for the politicians... silly me. I forgot for a second there that we're all sustained by money.

i was looking for an energy thread, and this one made me laugh ($2.69 a gallon?! hahaha)

anyway, there was one thing i read recently that was encouraging. it was in a magazine so i can't find the article, but it was about these guys:

http://www.jouleunlimited.com

here's a brief run through of what they do:

certain bactriums and enzymes can actually "eat" alot of bad "shit" thats in our environment...


but it still hasnt completely weened us off of "drill baby drill"

its a start...

What happens when that bacteria escapes from its controlled environment and invade waterways and shit and are just producing alkanes all over the place?

My point exactly.

i think we do have a climate change thread, though. which all things energy seem to fit in, except big events (eg deepwater horizon or fukushima)

global warming, i guess it's called

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6894&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=climate

I remember getting irked when people were using the global warming thread as a catch-all environment thread. It just stems from my belief that there are a lot of serious problems out there that have nothing to do with global warming.

I agree with you, but I think alt. energies fit under the global warming umbrella pretty well (not that they don't affect other environmental and national security issues). Maybe an alternative energy, or just plain energy thread would be better. I know I'd abuse the latter with geopolitics stuff, which, come to think of it, there probably should be a thread for non-specific international affairs stuff. The Obama thread often doesn't work, and sometimes things aren't WoT/Iraq or China related, but also not big enough (like Arab spring/Egypt/Haiti/Libya) to warrant their own thread. I do realize I possess the ability to create a thread.

I'd definitely be down if you started a geopolitics thread--I might even participate a bit in it.

I also started a Green Technology thread over here:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=51573

Next time I find a good related article, I'll start a geopolitics thread.

Cool, I'd never seen the green tech thread. I'll use that in the future, if I ever post something related to it.

well i'm guessing here, but i'm pretty sure these things need to be fed very large amounts of CO2 to grow best, so i'm thinking in the wild they'd certainly continue to grow, but not at the rate at which these researchers are producing them.

also, from what my brother (phd in micro-biology) was saying about the topic, these things don't need fields/large pools to grow. they've got basically large plastic bags or over-sized petri-dishes producing this stuff, in other words, self-contained units that keep them... well... contained.

again, i'm just going by the brief article i read and my brother's understanding of things, although he works for a pharmaceutical company, so he's no expert either.