Senate Leaders Revise and Revive Bush Energy Bill

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, February 17, 2004 (ENS) - Senate leaders from both parties have agreed to revive the energy bill by stripping the liability waiver for producers of the toxic gas additive MTBE and paring down the price tag of the package to about $14 billion. They hope to pass the revised bill as early as next week, but critics say the attempt to breathe new life into the stalled legislation is a classic exercise in futility.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Minority Leader Tom Daschle agreed to consider this latest version of the bill late last week.

"We will consider it as quickly as possible, in a constrained manner, with as few amendments as possible," Frist, a Tennessee Republican, told colleagues on Thursday.

The Senate is in recess this week, but debate on the new bill could begin Monday.

The 1,246 page bill addresses the nation's energy challenges and achieves the same goals as the old bill, according to Senate Energy Chairman Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican and key author of the original, and the revised, energy legislation.

Critics agree the United States needs an energy policy, but contend neither the original nor the revised energy bill contains one. (Photo courtesy Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

"I was particularly concerned about protecting the new jobs created in the near term - we have done that," he said. "The tax incentives for renewable energy, coupled with the ethanol, clean coal and natural gas provisions create every single job the old energy bill would have created. They create them as swiftly as the old bill would have done."

The new version tackles two issues credited with stalling the legislation last session - excessive tax subsidies, and the inclusion of a liability waiver for manufacturers of the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether, known as MTBE.

The original bill included some $24 billion in tax subsidies for energy development and production. Domenici said the estimated cost of the tax subsidies in the revised bill is closer to $15 billion because the bill delays implementation of most of the provisions until later this year.

And the new bill does not contain the liability waiver for manufacturers of MTBE, which has been used in U.S. gasoline at low levels since 1979 as an octane enhancer and in larger concentrations since 1992 to reduce harmful emissions from gasoline.

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 require the use of oxygenated gasoline in urban areas with unhealthy levels of air pollution, but MTBE is not specified. Refiners may choose to use other oxygenates, such as ethanol. Oxygen helps gasoline burn more completely, reducing harmful tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles.

MTBE has helped reduce emissions in some areas, but it is readily soluble in water and has been detected in ground and drinking water in every state in the nation.

Although the health risks of the suspected carcinogen have not been widely researched, even low levels of MTBE give drinking water supplies an offensive odor and taste and the chemical is persistent in groundwater.

Critics say the liability exemption is unwarranted because oil and gas companies have known for years about the dangers of MTBE and did not take precautions to prevent spills and leaks from underground storage tanks.

Majority Leader Bill Frist is keen to bring up the revised bill early next week. (Photo courtesy Office of the Senator)

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, spearheaded the effort to put the MTBE liability waiver into the final version of the energy bill and has vowed to fight its removal from the legislation.

The House passed the energy bill in November by a vote of 246 to 180 and DeLay and others have said repeatedly they have no interest in an energy bill that differs from that one.

This has some Senate Democrats questioning the decision to move forward with a different version.

"It is hard to see how this is a logical step toward enacting energy legislation this year," said Senator Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat and ranking minority member of the Senate Energy Committee.

Environmentalists, who have been some of the most vocal critics of the energy bill, have little good to say about the pared down version.

The revised bill eliminates $3 billion for energy efficiency and savings programs and is still laden with tax breaks for fossil fuel and nuclear energy.

"This is still a dirty unsustainable energy bill that threatens America's air, leaves consumers vulnerable to future blackouts and Enron style abuses, and squanders billions in taxpayer subsidies to corporations," said Katherine Morrison, staff attorney for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.