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Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Energy bill boosts Apollo Project

Jay Inslee
25 January 2007

In recent memory, our nation's energy policy has been better suited to the 19th century than the 21st century. Federal tax benefits and incentives have gone predominantly to oil, gas and coal companies -- industries that once spurred industrialization but now are well established and recognized as prime culprits of global warming. The tax breaks for fossil-fuel extractors make as much sense as giving Ford incentives today for manufacturing the Model T.

Last Thursday, common sense prevailed. The new Democrat-controlled Congress passed long-overdue legislation that would end assistance to oil and gas companies and create a fund for developing nascent, cutting-edge energy technologies fit for the 21st century. It means federal resources presently going to Exxon will be redirected to high-tech clean energy companies.

The Clean Energy Act closes tax loopholes and ends tax breaks for oil and gas companies. It also requires those companies to pay their fair share for drilling oil and gas on federal land in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska.

With the $14 billion that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the reforms will save over 10 years, I worked with House Democratic leaders to establish a reserve fund for future legislation aimed at developing renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies. They included it in the bill and named it the Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewables Reserve.

The shift from fossil fuels to burgeoning technologies marks a vast departure from energy policy in recent years and the first step toward a new vision for our nation's energy future -- our present-day Apollo Project.

The original Apollo Project got its beginning in President Kennedy's May 1961 speech to Congress. He committed Americans to "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth" within the decade.

In a December 2002 column for this publication, I named my vision for a new energy future the New Apollo Project because our race for clean, domestic energy sources closely parallels the space race. First, our national security and technological pre-eminence are on the line. Second, success depends on decisive action, bold leadership, focused federal resources, optimism and the genius of American entrepreneurs and innovators.

This first energy bill in the 110th Congress doesn't fulfill every goal of my ambitious 400-plus-page New Apollo Energy Act. But its $14 billion reserve will go a long way to achieve some of its goals, such as advancing solar energy and hybrid plug-in vehicles, and giving consumers access to energy-saving technologies for their homes and biofuels at filling stations.

The Clean Energy Act also puts us on the right footing to accomplish other goals of the New Apollo Energy Act -- from setting a nationwide standard for the minimum production of renewable electricity to creating a formal system to cap greenhouse-gas emissions.

It's been only about a month since the end of the 109th Congress and we've already taken our nation's energy policy from the 19th century to the 21st century. Going forward in the 110th Congress, I plan to continue working with congressional leaders to take the next steps -- and, I hope, giant leaps -- on New Apollo.

U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee has represented the 1st Congressional District since 1999.