Energy Bill held up over CAFE standards and renewables requirements for utilities

In Washington, US Rep. Herseth Sandlin said that 35 mpg CAFE standards and a provision requiring utilities to generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources are holding up the Energy Bill. Southern senators are objecting to the fact that nuclear and hydropower does not count towards the renewables target.

“I’m sorry, we cannot use wind, we cannot use solar just because of where we are,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said. “If hydropower and nuclear were included, we could run the standard up to 40 percent or 50 percent.”

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson put a procedural hold last week on the Energy Bill, arguing that the bill was bad for Texas.

In Washington, lobbying has intensified over the Bill and the ethanol mandate it will contain within the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Food groups, oil and gas companies and some livestock producers have requested a lower corn ethanol mandate, and have asked that higher mandates increases be tied to technological improvements.

The Senate bill passed this summer called for 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022, with 15 billion gallons coming from corn ethanol. Members of Congress from “oil-patch” states met informally to develop a common strategy.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a “25 x ‘25″ Energy Resolution, was introduced by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) in January. The bill calls for 25 percent of US energy consumption energy will come from domestic renewable resources by 2025. US annual fuel consumption is slightly over 200 billion gallons.

Also last week, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) introduced a new energy bill that would increase the renewable fuel standard to 18 billion gallons by 2016, compared to the 36 billion target for 2022 set in the Energy Bill passed by the Senate in July.

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