Bush doesn’t like much about the The Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007, likely to be voted on in the Senate today, and signalled he will likely veto the bill.
He denounced the provision that would make gasoline price gouging illegal and the fact that it doesn’t open new offshore and Alaskan areas to oil and natural gas drilling to increase domestic supplies.
Referring to the “NOPEC” amendment by Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI), which would allow the Justice Department to take action against members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for collusive practices in setting the price of oil, the White House said it would “harm U.S. interest abroad, discourage foreign investment in the U.S. economy,and could lead to retaliatory action, leading to a reduction in oil available to U.S. refiners.
The White House said the language that would require vehicle fuel-efficiency standards to average 35 miles a gallon by 2020 for passenger cars and light trucks is “overly prescriptive” and would lead to regulatory uncertainty.
About the provision that would make gasoline price gouging a federal crime, it said “The federal government has all the legal tools necessary to address price gouging,” and it won’t reduce gas prices.
And the administration opposes the RPS proposals, which would utility companies use more renewable energy, because they would result in higher electricity prices for in the southeast where renewable resources are less available. “Standards are best left to state discretion.”
It also opposes efforts to add a windfall profits tax.
“The (windfall profits tax) imposed during the Carter Administration was an abject failure, decreasing domestic energy production while increasing imports,” it said. “Another (windfall profits tax) could potentially raise consumer prices, reduce domestic oil production, and increase America ‘s oil imports.”
He also wants to see incentives for liquid coal and nuclear added.
U.S. Senate Republicans are offering an alternative to the renewable portfolio standard that would include nuclear power and coal generation with emission reduction technology.
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), ranking Republican on the energy panel, will offer a Clean Energy Portfolio standard that would allow new nuclear and hydro generation, new power plants that include carbon dioxide sequestration technology, and efficiency measures to be included in the mandate.
Domenici’s measure would push the mandate to 20% and allow states that didn’t have sufficient natural resources to support wind or solar power to contribute with new nuclear power or gasified coal power plants with carbon dioxide sequestration.
The measure could attract coal-state Democrats to get them a majority vote.
The National Resources Defense Council said that including non-renewable forms of energy and hydro-power would dilute the incentive to boost renewable power, basically making it useless. It would keep the current energy infrastructure in tact.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Monday estimated that even with a strict 15% renewable portfolio standard, the amount of renewable energy that would qualify under the standard would total around 12% of total electricity sales in 2030.
U.S. Senator Pete Domenici said that evidence was mounting that consumers would face a multi-billion dollar burden if a federal renewable portfolio standard is adopted.
He released the results of a study commissioned by the Edison Electric Institute that concludes the cost of a federal RPS would be $175 billion through 2030. Much of that burden will be on states that lack the natural resources to meet the RPS, especially those in the southeast, though according to the study, 27 states will be unable to meet the standard.
“The numbers that are coming in on the cost of a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard are exactly what I feared. A federal RPS which includes just a limited number of resources will do little to lower emissions, since so many states simply can’t meet it. Consumers that live in states without wind energy will face higher costs through no fault of their own,” he said.
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