Senate passes Energy Bill: Back to House and onto White House
Yesterday evening the U.S. Senate passed the new Energy Bill on its third try. After narrowly failing to get the requisite 60 votes the first two times, the Energy Bill passed last night with an overwhelming vote of 86-8. The deal breaker for Senate Republicans was $21.8 billion in new tax provisions that were removed from the bill after the second vote. Those taxes would have paid for new incentives for those who purchase plug-in hybrids. Also lost from the bill were new requirements for renewable energy from electric utilities. There were also a number of pork projects attached to the bill in order to garner additional support, and we'll be trying to track down what each of those are today. Since this version of the Energy Bill is now different than the one earlier passed by the House of Representatives, it must go back to the House for a revote, where it's expected to pass easily. The White House, meanwhile, has flipped and said it will pass this version of the bill once it's approved by the House. Again, the core nugget of legislation in the bill concerning automakers is a rise in the nation's Corporate Average Fuel Economy to 35 mpg by 2020, and that remains. This means that in short order we will see the first change to CAFE standards since the mid-'80s.
[Source: AutoblogGreen]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Austin 10:42AM (12/14/2007)
thank goodness that there were no taxes in it
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Guenther 10:56AM (12/14/2007)
In the immortal words of Henry Rutherford Hill- "My name is Hank taxpayer!"
Does anyone know if there's a govt. portal where I can view whatever legislation is being passed around? As a taxpayer, I think I'm entitled to know.
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Infinihertz 11:10AM (12/14/2007)
This is probably a good place to start: http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/b_three_sections_with_teasers/active_leg_page.htm
The Other Bob 12:09PM (12/14/2007)
Try here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/
Julius 10:57AM (12/14/2007)
Hmm... if this is the case, I'd bet that the Camaro and Challenger will have short production lives.
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Andrew 11:06AM (12/14/2007)
I've been saying this for some time. It's the logical progression of things.
Paul P. 11:22AM (12/14/2007)
Looks like every fast performance car will have a short lifespan. You're not getting ~35 mpg from any vehicle over 300hp without diesel or hybrid technology, doesn't matter if it's a turbo four or a V8.
I believe trucks and SUVS are exempt from this though, so all it's probably going to end up doing is causing manufacturers to make less models of large car and more models of small car and suv/truck. Therefore, pushing people who want larger vehicles into trucks and SUVs. Kind of a shame since I know a lot of people who would get rid of their suvs in favor of a large car with AWD, now that gas prices are so high, but aren't willing to go to a small/compact car.
dan 12:09PM (12/14/2007)
Nope, it includes SUVs and trucks under 8500lb GVWR too.
Never mind the 300hp performance cars, you're not getting 35mpg from any conventional car larger than a Geo Metro, period. Yaris? VW Golf TDI? Nope, neither do so well.
This bill essentially mandates the bulk of the auto market consist of Prius class hybrids, and if you want something nicer than that you'll pay plenty for it.
Andrew 11:11AM (12/14/2007)
This is the writing on the wall: car companies NEED to stop investing in large displacement internal combustion engines and start searching for feasible replacements. It's obvious we're going to electric or hydrogen fuel cells. The hybrid is just a temporary fix until those technologies get ironed out. If the automakers want to see 2050, (cough American big 3 cough), they need to stop investment into and production of inefficient vehicles, and start investing wholeheartedly into these new technologies.
This may come off as negative, but I really want to see the American car companies as innovative, fun, and profitable again. I don't think they've been all three at once since the 60's. Please guys, for old time's sake, show us you still have some life in you.
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Julius 11:26AM (12/14/2007)
I think the problem here is that these new technologies aren't going to be cheap. America as a whole is used to a "cheap personal transportation" paradigm that won't be easy to change. Even with all the advances in technology with consumer electronics, etc. we can't get a battery in a $2k premium laptop to last more than three hours of heavy usage - and laptops have been around for decades.
And since indoor computing has fewer environmental variables than automotive usage, I'm sure that a "breakthrough" in alternative energy for transportation isn't "around the corner"... especially since we'll have to do major infrastructure changes to accomodate this... remember, our electricity grid is archaic as well.
I'm sure even Gore would have to accept this - if he were President and pushed the Green agenda, he'd still realize that there were hard economic realities to making environmental objectives such as Kyoto.
Heck, Gore even made massive changes to his own home in response to critics - adding solar, geothermal, fluorescents etc. - at a price that's probably "not feasible for the average American", yet wound up with only an 11% drop in his electricity usage.
So it will take a concerted effort in changing the "American way of life" as a whole before we can make any significant impact on energy consumption - and that's where the problem for our politicians will be.
Andrew 12:04PM (12/14/2007)
Julius, I completely agree. I've come to expect the unexpected when it comes to that paradigm shift you've described. Personal transport may very well not be owned in the somewhat near future. Moreover, those that do own will need to understand the weight loss and performance issues. What I want to see is America get innovative on this, come up with the tech first, standardize production and implementation of whatever tomorrow's option is. Unfortunately, I expect someone in Europe or Japan to do that first.
I'm an engineer and work in this field, I can tell you first hand that there are many options right around the corner, such as ultra-capacitors and super lion. Like you said, the main issue right now is providing electricity. Until something like fission takes off, our country needs to go nuclear, something standardized like France's GE setup.
Either way, people need to realize there will be changes in the near future, a paradigm shift needs to happen. Whoever captures this market first wins the next 50 years of auto sales (and let's hope another 50 if autos are sold after that). Trends are showing that the big 3 don't give a damn, and as an American, that scares me. The whole ex-pat thing is just too cliche.
kris 11:12AM (12/14/2007)
You can say what you will about global warming, etc. If there was no money in the middle east, we wouldn't care nearly as much and definitely wouldn't be there. At the flick of a switch, there can be worldwide economic crisis. THAT is why we're there trying to "stabilize" things (either making friends w/ oil nations though diplomacy or ousting nations' unfriendly leaders to create friendly nations). We need to end out dependency on foreign oil. Period. You think we're really spending a trillion dollars because we care about whether Iraq has a democracy? If so, don't be so naive.
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Julius 11:33AM (12/14/2007)
Oh, and for what it's worth, my guess is that the days of the "Big Three" are over. The current economic and political realities are such that one (or two) of them will be gone by 2020.
The combination of high US production costs, high R&D costs for alternative powerplants, low public confidence in the domestic producers, now coupled with a direct challenge to their most profitable products, means that the ability for any of them to survive is now gone...
... and the lone survivor I'm thinking of is GM, which might be able to leverage its position in China to be able to import cars back to the US profitably.
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BILL 11:36AM (12/14/2007)
Is there anything in the bill that makes it ok for the U.S. to expand its domestic oil supply by about 100%? If we are not going to expand our domestic oil supply then all this talk of reducing our dependence on foreign oil is just the usual smoke and mirrors. Is it Brazil that just found a huge new supply of oil off shore?
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phewop118 11:38AM (12/14/2007)
I want a big, gas guzzling, fast truck, so why the hell should the government be the one to stop manufacturers for making them? MAKE WHAT PEOPLE WILL BUY!!!! The goddamned government has no position controlling production of vehicles by creating strict fuel economy standards. In fact, they should kill CAFE completely and let the people choose with their money what types of vehicles they want.
As for me, with my cars I always have and always will progress in a path of more HP and less fuel economy.
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Andrew 12:11PM (12/14/2007)
Your great great great grandchildren called, they thank you for being such a douchebag.
EnviroBob 12:30PM (12/14/2007)
Andrew,
Actually his great great great grandchildren will be trying to revive America from the socialist control of the North American Union that was aided into existance by morons who slowly eded complete control of society to the government in the name of environmentalism. BS now comes in "green"...
Andrew 12:38PM (12/14/2007)
Let the paradigm shift happen naturally. 200 years from now when there's no oil, we'll just say "oops, at least we still have our guns". Let's see what happens then.
EnviroBob 12:55PM (12/14/2007)
Andrew,
And your proof we have only 200 years of oil? They've already found that there's more oil under Utah than in the Middle East. Just one reserve in Alberta has enough oil to meet current demands for 100 years. 90% of the oil from Alaska is sent to Asia and Europe. Environmentalists have kept all other available domestic reserves from being utilized for nearly three decades.
Do we need to find other sources of power? Absolutely. But the current path is not the way.
For all of the people claiming that we need to rid ourselves of oil dependence, while being unwilling to utilize oil reserves on American teritories, I have yet to hear them offer a viable alternative. They don't like nuclear, never mind the fact that it is the only source capable of generating the amount of power required for society to continue. Instead of harping about how bad our current sources are, how about some viable options?
By the way, what's the point of your "oops, we still have our guns" comment?
Andrew 1:09PM (12/14/2007)
Our rate of oil consumption is increasing. Every time they re-figure how much oil is left, the amount of time dwindles. Today, most say ~100 years, if our rate acceleration continues. I was being nice by tacking 100 onto that number. Let's say that we cut usage phenomenally, we're geared towards running out 2000 years from now. That's still means we run out. It's sick to think that our knowable misdeeds today leads to that.
If we run out of oil, and have not developed another sustainable energy source, bam, anarchy. You can figure out what the outcome would be if guns were added to the equation.