Just Passed; Senate Energy Bill
An energy bill passed in the Senate yesterday that everyone is making much of but it’s not going to have any effect on the prices at the pump, for our heating bills, high electricity costs, etc. It’s long term effects won’t be seen for 5,10, or 15 years. So don’t jump for joy. The U.S. is still dismally behind. While it calls for more use of ethanol in refineries which will help some reduction is CO2 emissions, it also calls for more U.S. oil and gas exploration. I’m sorry but this is not what the American public was looking for.
The only thing better about the Senate bill as compared to the House bill, passed earlier this year, is that it makes no provisions for oil exploration in Alaska like the House bill, and it does want expand more quickly the use of renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power. It also does not offer any liability protection to companies that use a fuel additive called MTBE like the House bill. It is a more expensive bill than the House bill, however.
“Methyl tertiary butly ether (MTBE) was added to gasoline as an oxygenate to reduce air emissions in the state of California as well as other regions. California is experiencing widespread contamination of groundwater and surface waters as well as formaldehyde air emissions, posing a carcinogenic threat to humans. A cost-benefit analysis was needed to evaluate the gasoline blend with MTBE versus alternatives. The analysis concluded that there was no significant reductions in air emissions due to MTBE-blended fuel as compared to non-oxygenated alternatives, but that MTBE presented significant public health risks and costs associated with water contamination. The analysis, presented at two public hearings as well as in various written forms, has led to a ban of the MTBE additive.” http://ucanr.org/delivers/impactview.cfm?impactnum=232.
After reading about MTBE, what is the House thinking? They want to give liability protection to companies that use MTBE, which pollutes even more than the usual gas emissions? We’re trying to eliminate pollution. And no one wants drilling in Alaska; they’ve got enough going on with melting ice caps. As far as both bills, we want to get away from fossil fuels altogether. It’s already been established that ethanol is not a way to go. We have less and less farmland in this country all the time to grow the corn, and corn prices are just going to go up like gas. So it’s a dumb idea to begin with and the Senate bill requires a larger ethanol market than the House bill.
Another thing I find curious is that the U.S. wants to be able to expand the import of natural gas from overseas, because natural gas prices are high or even higher than the gasoline prices that we’re finding at the pump. Why? It’s been said over and over that we have plenty of natural gas. This administration has literally punched holes all over our NW states in search of more natural gas already, but here we go again looking to import fuel from elsewhere and get ourselves dependent on someone else again for our heat—dumb!
Read for yourself http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/jan-june05/energy_6-28.html. It’s not a very promising future for our country’s alternative energy capabilities. It’s nowhere near anything like the Kyoto treaty most of Europe signed. We’re still fooling around with a big bunch of nothing as far as capping our emissions and getting away from fossil fuels. It’s as if no one is noticing 75 tornadoes across 6 states. The east coast this morning is watching for a hurricane as that season begins. The same states that just experienced the tornadoes are flooding horribly with at least 5 levees breaking from the Missouri river. And LA residents are being evacuated due to fires.
The weather gets worse and our government doesn’t seem to get global warming. Start writing our congressmen. Let them know what you want and often because I think they are totally out of touch with the American public. So many of us are doing what we can, simply changing light bulbs, recycling paper, waiting for American hybrid cars, looking into alternatives, while our government looks for more oil and gas. Sometimes I think it’s too late for this country. The wealthy have taken over already. They just aren’t wearing their kingly crowns yet,