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May 22, 2002
A decent energy bill?
From the NCPA:
During the next 20 years, U.S. oil consumption could grow by one-third, and electricity demand could grow by more than 45 percent. The administration has proposed a balanced energy plan: of 105 recommendations, 42 encourage conservation and promote environmental protection; 35 deal with diversifying the U.S. energy supply and modernizing infrastructure.The House of Representatives and the Senate have passed different measures, which are now awaiting action by a conference committee.
Both bills forgo increasing fuel efficiency standards, which would not decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil and might force drivers into smaller, more hazardous vehicles. And Senators restrained pork-barrel spending better than their counterparts in the House.
However, the House's bill is far closer to the president's plan. The problem with the Senate bill isn't so much the amount of money it would spend but the types of programs it proposes.
o Although renewable energy makes up less than 2 percent of America's resources (despite billions of dollars of subsidies), the Senate mandated that renewables constitute at least 10 percent of the U.S. energy portfolio by 2020 -- which would make energy much more expensive. o In addition, the Senate bill mandates tripling the use of ethanol in motor fuels, which would not help the environment, but would significantly raise gasoline prices. o The House bill rejects ethanol provisions and does not mandate a set percentage of renewable energy.
Recognizing the need for domestic fossil fuel development, the House bill includes $2 billion in tax credits for clean coal technologies. It also opens up additional public land for energy production, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which contains 6 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil. If Senate conferees hold firm on spending, and House conferees hold firm on priorities, we could end up with a decent energy bill.
Source: Sterling Burnett (NCPA), "Energy Bill Could Be Good," Dallas Morning News, May 19, 2002.
Your sources seem clearly biased to the stasis oriented old-guard. Specifically, NCPA suggesting that higher CAFE standards will "not decrease dependence on foreign oil" and will force people in to unsafe vehicles is patently ridiculous.
CAFE standards. Government mandated standards will increase innovation on the part of car companies. The California regulations in fact spurred the deployment of the very successful Prius and just-released Honda Civic, which is capable of greater than 60 MPG with low emissions. This is just the beginning. Next year Honda is committed to shipping a natural gas-based fuel cell vehicle. CAFE standards help drive these innovations. Car company execs have repeatedly stated this correlation as fact.
To think that cars must become less safe to be lighter is ridiculous. Simply look at the innovation in materials used in the Hypercar (www.hypercar.com) or look at the solid Volvo vs the Ford Explorer. The Explorer is larger, heavier, wildly less efficient and incredibly unsafe.
Let's have a renaissance site, not a rhetoric site. :)
CAFE standards COULD reduce the amount of gas that Americans use, though it is not at all clear that people wouldn't end up driving more and spending the same amount on gas. In fact, it strikes me that despite all the improvements in efficiency made over the decades; we use more oil now than ever.
But stipulate that CAFE standards would have the effect of making us use less gas--this may reduce the PRICE of oil globally, it wouldn't necessarily change the source mix of the oil--and thus not change our relative dependency on different sources. It's hard to imagine, therefore, that this would have any meaningful impact on our dependence on foreign oil.
Certainly government regulations can force innovation--virtually any pressure point will encourage innovation to address it. But the question is one of cost benefit. Are the benefits from this incremental degree of innovation worth the price we are paying as a whole? After all, not many of us drive a hybrid today or will in the near future. We have to look at the whole equation.