New Energy Future

For Immediate Release:
April 25, 2002

Contact:
Liz Hitchcock
(202) 546-9707

The Senate Energy Bill Fails America
Statement of Anna Aurilio, Legislative Director

Download U.S. PIRG's side-by-side analysis of key provisions in the House and Senate energy bills.

We are extremely disappointed that the Senate passed an energy bill that fails to reduce our dependence on imported oil, fails to significantly increase our nation's overall energy security, fails to protect electricity consumers, and fails to safeguard our environment.

While we are pleased that the Senate rejected drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and included standards to increase renewable energy generation, there is no way that any conference between the House energy bill, written by the polluters for the polluters, and the Senate energy bill, now plundered by polluters, will produce the clean, safe energy policy that Americans deserve. Congress should go back to the drawing board.

The Senate energy bill actually weakens existing environmental and consumer protections. For example:

It exempts pickup trucks from any future increases in fuel economy standards;
It weakens Safe Drinking Water Act requirements in order to expand oil and gas exploration and development using hydraulic fracturing;
It allows certain new nuclear reactors to have even lower liability in case of a nuclear accident than existing reactors under the Price-Anderson Act;
It reverses a U.S. policy against reprocessing nuclear fuel;
It exempts the oil and renewable fuels industries from liability for damages caused by fuel additives;
It reduces environmental standards for re-licensing of hydroelectric dams;
It repeals the one of the federal government's most important mechanisms to protect electricity consumers -- the Public Utility Holding Company Act; and
It permits the Bush administration to follow through on its announced plans to rollback energy efficiency standards for air conditioners.

Forward-thinking energy legislation should reduce consumption of oil by at least one million barrels a day, guarantee that at least 10 percent of electricity supplies come from new clean renewable energy, cut subsidies to polluting energy sources, ensure a reliable and consumer-friendly electric system, reduce pollution to our air, land and water, and safeguard the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other wild places. Any bill that falls short of that fails to make the grade, and fails the American public.

Download U.S. PIRG's side-by-side analysis of key provisions in the House and Senate energy bills.

U.S. PIRG is the national lobby office for the State Public Interest Research Groups. State PIRGs are non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy groups.

More information about The State PIRGs' Campaign for a New Energy Future including the recent report, Failing Grades: How The Senate Energy Bill Fails To Secure A New Energy Future, is available at http://www.newenergyfuture.com/.