It was apparent from about mid-winter that the Senate energy bill would be an improvement over the House version but how much was uncertain. Now that a lengthy debate on the bill has been completed, the answer seems to be that it is substantially better in some areas, not at all better in others and not much of a counterbalance in an atmosphere of anti-environmentalism.

The Senate version of the energy bill was completed as the Bush administration promotes its Clean Skies plan to relax pollution limits on power plants and proposes to codify the coal-industry practice of backfilling valleys and waterways with rocks and dirt from mountaintop mining. Sure the Senate package is weak; but as a measure of environmental retreat, it is running away more slowly than other proposals.

And, to be fair, it contains some forward-looking measures. An amendment by Sen. Susan Collins would provide funding ($10 million annually) for the next six years to study abrupt climate change, an issue the National Academy of Sciences recently highlighted and for which the University of Maine has several top researchers. And while the new biomass proposal doesn’t suggest anything that Maine does not already meet, its expansion of tax credits could help here and encourage this alternative fuel elsewhere. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s bills on energy-efficient homes and appliances, which provide incentives for their use, were something less than was talked about a year or two ago but considerably more than anticipated this spring.

Both of Maine’s senators, in fact, can be credited with fighting to keep some of the better portions of the package and fighting to prevent some of the worst proposals. For instance, the Senate bill spends far more money on development of renewable energy than does the House version, which provides $33 billion to the coal, oil and gas industries. And the Senate favored an Alaskan gas pipeline over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as the House did. But neither could pass substantial improvements to fuel economy for vehicles and while Congress and the administration keep saying energy independence is an important goal, it is difficult to see how the nation drew nearer to it with this legislation except in some speculative ways.

The debate isn’t over yet, of course. The House and Senate bills still have to be reconciled in conference, meaning the Senate version will be weakened further. As long as the terrible House version exists, however, those concerned about the direction of environmental policy can keep telling themselves, “It could have been worse.”