Editorial: A watered-down victory

Sunday, Dec. 16, 2007 | 1:18 a.m.

The energy bill that passed the House earlier this month by a wide margin was too good to be true. When the bill got to the Senate last week, Republicans filibustered until they got a bill that protects tax breaks for the oil and gas industries and kills an urgently needed national renewable electricity standard.

Congressional Democrats nevertheless scored a victory. A major provision of the House bill - a mandate to improve auto fuel efficiency by 2020 - remained intact in the Senate bill.

If Congress remains strong on this provision, the United States will be saving 400 million barrels of oil a year by that date - half of what is now being imported from the Mideast.

The bill now goes back to the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi predicts it will once again pass by a wide margin given its other conservation measures, such as a mandate for increased production of alternative fuels.

Now that the oil industry's tax breaks have been preserved, and a provision that would have increased taxes on fossil fuels to invigorate renewable energy industries has been removed, President Bush says he will sign the bill.

But Bush, and the Senate Republicans who radically altered the House version of the bill, in our view once again put their loyalties to the lobbyists for conventional energy over the best interests of the country.

The increased taxes on fossil fuels, whose emissions threaten drastic climate changes as well as human health, and the repeal of Republican-passed tax breaks for the largest oil and gas companies would have generated $21.8 billion. That money was planned for investment and research into renewable energy, which clearly should be providing an increasing amount of the country's total energy supply. Nevada is among the states that have ample potential for producing significant amounts of energy from renewable sources.

Also gravely unfortunate was the blocking of the national renewable electricity standard, which would have required electric utilities to provide 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020. This provision would have cut oil imports while reducing the pollution that causes global warming.

The Republicans had precisely the number of votes needed to water down this bill. One more vote and the Democrats could have passed it with all provisions intact. Once again, the importance of the 2008 elections has been demonstrated.