{"id":11207,"date":"2007-06-22T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2007-06-22T13:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11207.html"},"modified":"2007-06-22T09:00:21","modified_gmt":"2007-06-22T13:00:21","slug":"real-progress-on-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/real-progress-on-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Real progress on energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all the recent talk about stalemates, vetoes, filibusters, and gridlock in Washington, last night the Senate passed<\/a> an impressive and important energy bill.<\/p>\n

The Senate passed a sweeping energy legislation package last night that would mandate the first substantial change in the nation’s vehicle fuel-efficiency law since 1975 despite opposition from auto companies and their Senate supporters.<\/p>\n

After three days of intense debate and complex maneuvering, Democratic leaders won passage of the bill shortly before midnight by a 65 to 27 vote.<\/p>\n

The package, which still must pass the House, would also require that the use of biofuels climb to 36 billion gallons by 2022, would set penalties for gasoline price-gouging and would give the government new powers to investigate oil companies’ pricing. It would provide federal grants and loan guarantees to promote research into fuel-efficient vehicles and would support test projects to capture carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants to be stored underground. […]<\/p>\n

The passage of fuel-efficiency measure was viewed as a major triumph for the Democrats, particularly the last-minute dealmaking that enabled passage of the comprehensive change to mileage standards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good. The first national standards on fuel economy (CAFE) were passed in 1975 and have barely been touched since. Senate Dems, with a narrow Jeffords-inspired majority, launched an effort to boost fuel-economy standards in 2002, but Republicans and the oil companies strangled the effort before it went very far.<\/p>\n

But the broader political dynamic has clearly changed in recent years. Not only is there a Democratic majority with a mandate to act on energy issues, there is also stronger public demand and fewer Republicans willing to take a stand on the wrong side of the issue. Dems hammered away yesterday, emphasizing both environmental and national security concerns, and managed to come away with a strong piece of legislation that won bi-partisan support.<\/p>\n

This is not to say the bill couldn’t have been better — and would have been were it not for the Senate minority.
\n
\nOne measure Dems were anxious to pass was successfully filibustered<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a $32 billion package of tax breaks for renewable energy that would have been financed mostly by new taxes on major oil companies.<\/p>\n

Democrats came three votes short of overcoming a threatened Republican filibuster that was keeping the measure from being attached to a broader energy bill. With a final vote of 57-36 — and a number of senators not voting — Democrats could resurrect the measure later, though there was no immediate indication of that.<\/p>\n

The tax proposal had some bipartisan support, but some Republicans argued that the nearly $29 billion in additional taxes on major oil companies was too harsh on the oil industry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Poor oil industry, with their multibillion-dollar profit margins. It’s good to know the Senate GOP has their backs. Honestly, do they want<\/i> Dems to paint them as shills for Big Oil in ’08?<\/p>\n

In any case, kudos to Senate Dems for passing an important piece of legislation. On to the House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For all the recent talk about stalemates, vetoes, filibusters, and gridlock in Washington, last night the Senate passed an impressive and important energy bill. The Senate passed a sweeping energy legislation package last night that would mandate the first substantial change in the nation’s vehicle fuel-efficiency law since 1975 despite opposition from auto companies and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}