Energy Rush

The best thing that could be said of the long-awaited energy bill announced yesterday afternoon is that it no longer contains a plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But conference leaders have been so reluctant to release their work that it is hard to confirm all that remains in the bill, although what is known is not encouraging.

The 1,700 pages of policy, tax breaks, legal protections and subsidies that make up the bill can barely be reviewed before Congress is to adjourn Nov. 21. A disastrous rollback of the Clean Air Act would slide though under this plan, yet has barely been discussed. The secrecy combined with a rush to vote before leaving town is an affront to the democratic process.

To be sure, its authors intended the secrecy part, although initial news reports say the reconciled bill still contains too little in the way of energy conservation and too many tax breaks for producers of oil, nuclear, gas and coal – the subsidies are said to total $20 billion, twice the amount President Bush wanted. Legal protections for the makers of the gasoline additive MTBE are said to be in the bill, as are large subsidies for ethanol and, for that matter, subsidized financing for an artificial rain forest in Iowa.

Count on the House to pass the bill early next week, largely unread. The Senate will take it up after that, perhaps Wednesday, with the question of whether it has 60 senators willing to close off debate on such a large, far-reaching bill. Sen. Susan Collins expressed the proper level of concern over the bill: “I have seen no indication that the bill will require any of our electricity to come from clean, renewable energy sources,” she said. “I see no indication that the bill will reduce our reliance on foreign oil by increasing automobile fuel efficiency or mandating oil savings; and I see no indication that the bill will do anything to address climate change.

“I call on the Senate to reject any bill that does not contain an appropriate balance between energy efficiency, renewable energy, energy production, and environmental protection.”

The senator is correct and should go further. The public has barely seen what the bill contains and will not until it is passed unless the Senate holds full debate on the bill’s many provisions, a debate that should not be restricted to just a couple of days.

Congress has tried for 10 years to develop an energy bill that would address complex and shifting energy demands and very real environmental worries while anticipating the likely course of energy markets in the coming decades. It is difficult work that requires unusual foresight. Members of Congress should take care with what they pass even if that means delaying this long-awaited bill.