Autoblog

Once the Senate removed a big $21.8 billion tax package that Democrats had hoped would be included in our nation's new energy bill, the bill itself began sailing through the halls of Congress. After finally being passed by the Senate on the third try, the bill returned to the House of Representatives, which has to revote on it since the Senate had trimmed a little here and added a little there. The core of the bill, an increase in Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards to 35 mpg by 2020, has remained and the House overhwhelmingly passed the revised bill today by a vote of 314 - 100. Thus, we can now officially say that the United States Congress has approved the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. You'll know doubt hear politicians crooning about its historical significance on the news networks tonight, and truth be told, it is a big deal and will force automakers to apply every bit of ingenuity they have to meet the new CAFE standards in time while providing consumers with cars and trucks that they actually want to buy.

The bill will now be delivered to President Bush who has said he will sign it into law tomorrow. Ladies and gentleman, drink up, we have a new energy bill.

UPDATE: Ford and Chrysler's official responses to the new energy bill added after the jump.

[Source: Associated Press, Reuters]

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]

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved the Energy Independence and Security Act today by a margin of 235 to 181. The new energy bill was crafted on a compromise reached last week between Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), and calls for an increase of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard to 35 mpg by 2020. Though the compromises contained in the bill, like keeping standards for cars and trucks separate, assured it a win in the House, it seems there's little chance of it surviving elsewhere. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) came right out and said the bill "clearly has no chance of becoming law." That's because the White House has already said it will veto the bill, which contains additional green policy that affects more than just CAFE standards.

The bill heads to the Senate next, where it will likely lose much of its teeth before being sent off to the President's desk for a possible veto. A number of automakers that have rallied against various forms of this bill have already made public statements that they'll put their best efforts forth to comply with whatever changes are made into law (read GM's statement here and Ford's after the jump), which means they sense the fight is ending and it's time start working on technologies to raise their fleet-wide fuel economy average.

[Source: Houston Chronicle]