Editorial: Mixed bag on national energy plan

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2003 | 9:05 a.m.

Late last week Republican leaders in the Senate and House reached an agreement on an energy bill. The nearly 1,200-page legislation contains some decent provisions. For instance, the bill would maintain tax incentives for renewable fuels, such as hydrogen, solar and wind. Solar, a clean source of energy, has great potential in Southern Nevada's sunny climate. And geothermal energy, an abundant source of renewable energy in Nevada, also gets a boost in the bill. A provision pushed by Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., would provide geothermal energy with the same kind of tax credit currently reserved for wind and biomass. Another plus is that drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska isn't included in the bill.

Despite the positives, there are negatives in the bill, which Congress may vote on as early as Wednesday. There are no requirements that auto manufacturers increase the fuel efficiency of their fleets. That means our gas-guzzling nation will increase its dependence on foreign oil. It also is discouraging that the legislation provides incentives to nuclear power, which produces deadly, high-level nuclear waste -- 77,000 tons of which President Bush and Congress want sent to Southern Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The financial incentives to build new nuclear power plants are being proposed even though Yucca Mountain still hasn't been licensed. There is much evidence that shipping this waste to Yucca Mountain and burying it there is unsafe -- so it makes no sense to provide even more breaks for this failed industry. Going forward with nuclear power also is ridicul ous because the proposed dump isn't large enough to handle the existing nuclear waste and that which is expected over the n! ext decade.

What's lacking in the bill, which purports to be a national energy policy, are hard choices, specifically those that are at odds with powerful special-interest groups. Cozying up to Detroit and the nuclear power industry isn't the answer. A national energy policy should be developed that is in our long-term national interest. That isn't the case with the pending energy bill, which at the very least should be amended to get rid of the giveaway to the nuclear power industry and demand that automakers do their part in making vehicles that don't waste so much fuel.