New Hampshire Delegation Splits on Energy Bill

NARR: The House quickly passed its energy bill last week.

It would force utility companies to use renewables for fifteen percent of their energy . . . and rolls back billions of dollars in tax breaks for big oil companies.

But Republican Senators rejected that bill when it got to them because, they say, their leadership broke its promise.

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"This gets down to the relationship between members around here and the integrity of the process, that when an agreement has been reached they won't go back on it."

That's New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg.

He voted against the House bill last week, but says he supports the two contentious provisions . . . the renewable energy mandates and ending tax breaks for oil companies.

But a powerful block of southern Senators oppose the renewable energy mandates arguing that there isn’t enouth wind or solar power to make them realistic.

And says Gregg the leading Republican on the Senate Energy Committee and Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed that those two provisions would be stripped from the Senate bill.

Gregg calls the vote a matter of integrity.

New Hampshire's other Republican Senator John Sununu agrees.

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"This should be a bi-partisan process. The bill that came back was put together in close doors. No input from conferees. We gotta get back to that bi-partisan bill and get the job done."

Sununu and Gregg supported an energy bill when the Senate passed it earlier this year.

Among its provisions was an increase in the auto fuel efficiency – or CAFÉ – standards to thirty five miles per gallon .

The reworked Senate bill includes those CAFÉ increases.

And the Democratic Leadership thinks it can muster enough votes to end twenty one billion dollars in tax breaks for the oil industry.

David Sandalow follows energy issues for the Brookings Institution.

He says Democrats want to cut off the federal government's ties to the oil industry which Sandalow says depends on tax incentives.

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"Oil's dominance as a transportation fuel wouldn't exist today without the support of the federal government, and that support is far reaching and wide ranging."

Sandalow points to the miles of pipelines that have been paid for with tax payer dollars.

Congress passed an energy bill two years ago.

Back then the Republicans controlled Congress included thirteen billion dollars in tax breaks for oil companies.

It also included billions of dollars for coal and nuclear technologies.

Both Sununu and Gregg voted against the legislation.

Environmentalists say the new energy bill is a far cry from the last one.

Anna Aurilio is the Director for Environment New Hampshire.

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"The energy bill they will bring up … is a really significant step forward and it's a 180 degree turn from the energy bill passed in 2005 and signed into law by Bush."

Aurilio says the CAFÉ standard increase is the most significant provision.

The bill also requires seven times more ethanol be used by twenty twenty – thirty six billion gallons worth.

But New Hampshire’s Second District Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes is disappointed the renewable energy mandates are not in the Sante bill.

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"It's very disappointing that the Senate is going along with obsolete thinking and special interest pressure."

Critics, like Hodes, say it comes down to lobbying power.

Alternative energy companies donated only two hundred and forty thousand dollars to political campaigns last year.

That’s compared to the one hundred million dollars in contributions by electrical companies.

Still even without the renewable energy mandates, Hodes says the new Senate bill is a good start for the nation.

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"Even without the renewable portfolio standard it's still a major step. And with a state like New Hampshire taking the lead on renewable portfolio standards, states are just gonna have to keep doing it until the federal government gets its act together."

President Bush has threatened to veto the energy bill . . . and it’s not clear whether Congress can muster the votes to override him.

For NHPR News, I'm Matt Laslo in Washington.