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Statement of U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
on the Energy Bill at a Hearing of
the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
May 26, 2005
Mr. Chairman, I want to begin
by praising you for the process you’ve used in crafting
this Energy Bill. It has been bipartisan from the start and throughout
the process. And I particularly want to commend you for how you
made an unprecedented effort to meet with every member of the
Committee individually. While I have nothing but praise for the
process you’ve used, I do have serious concerns about the
final product that the Committee has produced.
First, the bill does nothing
to lower the record high gas prices that consumers face when they
fill up at the pump. To the contrary, the bill now contains an
8 billion gallon ethanol mandate that Energy Department estimates
would increase gas prices while doing little to reduce our nation’s
dependence on foreign oil.
The bill also repeals the Public
Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA) without providing adequate
safeguards to prevent captive ratepayers from getting fleeced
to support unregulated businesses of utility parent companies.
And the bill overrides the State
of Oregon’s and other states’ ability to protect their
coastal resources by giving sole authority over citing of liquefied
natural gas terminals to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
More fundamentally, at a time
when our country desperately needs a new energy policy, the bill
essentially continues business as usual. The bill continues the
old policies of heavily subsidizing fossil fuels and nuclear power.
For example, the bill provides $1.8 billion for a new Clean Coal
Initiative and $1.25 billion for a Next Generation Nuclear Plant.
There’s more than $3 billion just for those two programs.
By comparison, there is only
$50 million specified for renewable program – a tiny fraction
of what’s provided for coal and nuclear. And the bill fails
to include even a minimal renewable portfolio standard to ensure
that a portion of electric power comes from renewable energy sources.
The bottom line is there’s no real change in direction of
our nation’s energy policy away from established fossil
and nuclear energy toward greener energy technologies.
The one area where the bill
approaches something resembling a level playing field is the new
Incentives Title of the bill, which allows renewable technologies
to seek Federal loan guarantees along with new fossil and nuclear
technologies. But even here, the companies that can provide up-front
cash for their projects get priority for loan guarantees, so established
energy companies have a better chance to compete for funds than
innovative green energy developers.
When we began debate on the
Energy Bill last week, a number of members of the Committee voiced
their support for a “balanced” energy bill and suggested
that the bill should be called the Clean Energy Act of 2005.
At the end of the day, the bill
is a long way from balanced and cannot legitimately be called
a “clean energy” bill. For these reasons, I cannot
support the bill in its current form.
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