United States House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Re:
Oppose Dirty, Dangerous Energy Bills
Dear
Representative,
The League of
Conservation Voters (LCV) is the political voice of the
national environmental community. Each year, LCV
publishes the National Environmental
Scorecard, which details the voting records of
Members of Congress on environmental legislation.
The Scorecard is distributed to LCV members,
concerned voters nationwide, and the press.
LCV urges you to
oppose the energy legislation passed by four House
committees last week. This legislation would enact
portions of the Bush energy plan which would harm the
environment, threaten public health and fail to help
consumers. When this legislation reaches the House
floor, we urge you to vote to protect the Arctic
National Arctic Refuge and other sensitive areas,
dramatically increase the fuel economy of cars and
trucks, increase funding for renewable energy and
energy efficiency programs, and cut billions in
subsidies which would increase air and global warming
pollution and radioactive waste production.
Americans need a
smarter, cleaner energy policy that reduces our
dependence on polluting energy sources and saves
consumers’ money by significantly increasing energy
efficiency and renewable energy. However, these
bills and the Bush energy plan are a giveaway to the
oil, coal, nuclear, and auto industries. Instead
of significantly increasing automobile and appliance
efficiency and setting standards for renewable energy
generation, this legislation will open sensitive areas
like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other
public lands to oil and gas drilling, and use at least
$40 billion of our tax dollars to subsidize polluting
energy sources including oil, coal and nuclear
fuel.
A provision in
H.R. 2436, the Resources Committee bill, would open the
pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas
exploration. The Arctic Refuge is home to polar
bears, caribou, musk oxen, and millions of migratory
birds, and should not be ravaged for less than six
months worth of oil. The Refuge is also sacred to
the Gwich’in, the ‘people of the caribou.’ The Gwich’in
have lived near the Refuge for thousands of years, and
depend on the caribou for food, shelter, and as a link
to their traditional way of life. This bill also
threatens other precious public lands across the country
by making it more difficult for the Department of the
Interior to protect endangered species and other
environmental priorities on public land open to oil and
gas development. Local Forest Service managers
would no longer be allowed to stop harmful oil and gas
drilling on Forest Service land. In addition, the
legislation would encourage oil and gas production in
sensitive offshore areas. These are special places
that should be protected for future generations,
especially because the vast majority of our public lands
are already open for oil and gas drilling.
H.R. 2436 also
includes a provision that would require the Department
of Interior to maximize energy production at hydropower
plants without regard to impacts on fish, fishing,
boating, water quality, river health, or any other
natural resource. By squeezing the highest value
kilowatts from federal hydropower plants and slowing
river flows when dams are working to create as much
power as possible, this provision may destroy some of
the nation’s best-known sport fisheries including those
on the North Platte, Green, Missouri, Flathead, and
Sacramento rivers.
The House energy
bills fail to include a meaningful increase in fuel
economy standards for cars and light trucks. The
fuel economy provision currently in the Energy and
Commerce Committee’s bill, H.R. 2587, does next to
nothing to improve fuel economy, save oil and save
consumers money at the pump. The Burr Amendment
directs the Department of Transportation to set a CAFE
standard for light trucks that will save at least 5
billion gallons of gasoline between model years
2004-2010. Although this sounds significant, it
amounts to saving one day’s worth of oil per year.
A better approach would be to close the light truck
loophole, which allows the millions of SUVs and other
light trucks now on our roads to meet much lower fuel
economy standards than passenger cars. While cars
are currently required to meet a CAFE standard of 27.5
miles per gallon (mpg), light trucks are held to a low
20.7-mpg standard. Light trucks now represent 50%
of new vehicles sold. This has caused the average
fuel economy of new vehicles to sink to the lowest level
since 1980. This light truck loophole means we
guzzle an extra 18.4 billion gallons of gasoline per
year, costing consumers $25.75 billion at the pump and
spewing out an additional 220 million tons of global
warming pollution.
These bills
would use billions in taxpayer dollars to subsidize more
pollution from coal plants, more oil drilling and more
radioactive waste producing nuclear power. For
example, more than 80% of the budget-busting tax
provisions in H.R. 2511, the Ways and Means Committee
bill, would go to polluting energy industries. Big
oil, coal, nuclear, and auto companies will get $27
billion in tax breaks that will lead to increased air
pollution, more emissions of gases that cause global
warming, and more dangerous radioactive waste.
Cumulatively these bills provide a total of $13.5
billion in coal subsidies, despite the fact that
coal-fired power plants are a major source of air
pollution and global warming emissions. The bills
provide more than $2.7 billion in tax breaks for the
nuclear industry, including funding for the development
of new uranium enrichment techniques such as highly
dangerous “in situ leach” uranium mining. In this
mining technique, radioactive uranium and other toxic
chemicals can leach into groundwater, posing a
significant public health threat.
Less than one
fifth of the tax incentives in H.R. 2511 would go to
energy efficiency and renewable energy incentives that
could save consumers money and reduce our dependence on
dirty energy sources. While the overall package of
bills does include modest incentives for renewable
energy and energy efficiency, it fails to include
policies, such as a renewable portfolio standard that
would significantly increase electricity produced by
renewable sources, and a national trust fund that could
match state level initiatives to fund energy efficiency
and renewable energy programs.
We urge you to
oppose this and any other energy plan that rolls back
environmental and public health protections. LCV’s
Political Advisory Committee will consider including
votes on these issues in compiling LCV’s 2001
Scorecard. If you need more information,
please call Betsy Loyless in my office at
202/785-8683.
Sincerely,
Deb Callahan
President | 
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