Democrats yesterday threw as many amendments as they could at the energy bill but very few — and none of the major ones — stuck.
After a seven-hour markup session that ended shortly before 9 p.m., the House Energy and Commerce Committee had completed work on three titles of the bill — with 13 titles to go. Today’s session, scheduled to start at 10 a.m., will start with the coal policy section of the bill.
Yesterday’s session, a continuation of a markup that began last week, was marked by heated debates over hydropower facility licensing, renewable portfolio standards, liquefied natural gas terminal siting policies and efforts to speed up the licensing process for oil refineries.
But it also was notable for some public efforts at forging a compromise. The debate over hydropower licensing pits committee Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) against ranking member John Dingell (D-Mich.), who charged that the bill’s language weighed too heavily in favor of power generation license applicants and not enough for other groups that use navigable waterways — municipalities, recreation users and shippers — particularly those who fight the hydropower applicants in licensing proceedings.
“This is simply, clearly and plainly, obviously unfair,” Dingell said, chiding the hydropower industry for seeking more licensing process preferences from Congress after he already had worked years ago to give it the licensing reforms it had sought.
Dingell’s attempt to amend the committee’s energy bill draft with language giving all users of equal rights to public waterways failed. But Barton noted that he earlier had offered Dingell a compromise that would give all parties in hydropower licensing proceedings the ability to request trial-type proceedings, which Dingell said provided “a modest level of comfort” but was not enough to secure his support. The two then decided to try further negotiations, leaving Dingell the option of trying to amend that section of the bill once the markup process is completed.
The renewable portfolio standards proposal, offered by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), also was voted down when lawmakers complained that the proposal, which would have required utilities to raise the amount of renewable energy they generate by 1 percent each year to the point where it becomes 20 percent of their generation by 2027, as having “gaping loopholes” because it excluded existing hydropower, and for stepping on the states, which traditionally have set renewable portfolio standards on their own.
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