When House and Senate Republicans went behind closed doors to draft a compromise energy bill, you knew Democrats wouldn’t like the finished product.
Turns out, even some Republicans can’t stand this poor excuse for a policy, one that employs a feeding frenzy of special favors designed to get just enough Democratic votes for final passage.
Republican Sen. John McCain labeled the bill the "No Lobbyist Left Behind" act. Fellow Republican Susan Collins of Maine captured in a nutshell what’s wrong with the bill: "It favors special interests, it contains billions of dollars in wasteful subsidies, and it fails to promote energy conservation."
Democratic Rep. Rick Larsen of Lake Stevens may have put it best when he said, "We needed a George Jetson energy policy, and instead we got one built by Fred Flintstone."
This legislation is irresponsible both in its content and in the way it was drafted. Republican leaders shut Democrats out of negotiations, plopping the 1,100-page bill on Democrats’ desk just three days before Tuesday’s final vote in the House. After passage there, only the Senate can stop it, and a filibuster appears to be the only way.
But it will be hard to muster the 40 votes that will take, because the bill is cynically laden with enough pork to draw the support of a few Democrats. For example, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle will vote for the bill because it contains a costly ethanol subsidy that will help him get re-elected in corn-producing South Dakota.
A major energy bill should be visionary, putting an emphasis on developing renewable energy sources and on conservation. This legislation does little of either, instead focusing on incentives for oil, gas, coal and nuclear production. Rather than moving us toward a new era of cleaner, more sustainable energy, it represents business as usual — in energy consumption as well as special-interest politics.
One of the few positive aspects of the bill is that it holds off an effort to create Regional Transmission Organizations, which would likely dilute the economic benefit the Northwest depends on from hydropower. The bad, however, far outweighs the good.
Sen. Maria Cantwell said on the Senate floor this week that the nation would be better off with no bill at all. She’s right. Principled senators should stop this sham and force a fresh start.
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