[Corporations] Tell Senate to Kill the Energy Bill!

[Mike Ewall]

*** Please forward widely ***
!!! A C T I O N   A L E R T !!!

Nov. 20, 2003

TELL DASCHLE & YOUR SENATORS TO KILL THE FEDERAL ENERGY BILL!

The Energy Bill of 2003 is a taxpayer-subsidized bonanza for the energy, 
waste and agriculture industries, a severe danger to the environment, and a 
hazard to taxpayer wallets and human health.

The bill would give between $30 and $100 billion in subsidies and tax 
breaks for fossil fuel power plants, drilling, mining, biotech, corporate 
agriculture, sewage sludge, landfills, incinerators and new nuclear 
reactors (to name a few beneficiaries) and the details are downright 
frightening.  See http://www.energyjustice.net/energybill/ to learn more.

Senate Minority Leader Daschle revealed today that he will support the 
energy bill (due to the ethanol provisions that would bring money to his 
state).  His position puts a filibuster at risk.  Please call Daschle, in 
addition to your own Senators, and tell him to support the filibuster.

PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS!
Connect through the Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Sen. Tom Daschle: 202-224-2321
Ask them to OPPOSE the Energy Bill!
Specifically ask them to support a FILIBUSTER!!

Also available... (but calling is MUCH more effective!)
Free Fax to your senators: http://www.stopenergybill.org

ENERGY BILL NEARS COMPLETION: Final Votes Possible TOMORROW!

On Saturday (11/15), the Republican conferees released their energy bill 
language (H.R.6, "The Energy Policy Act of 2003").  The energy conference 
committee approved it, the House of Representatives rubber stamped it on 
Tuesday (11/18), and the Senate will vote ANY TIME now.  If passed into 
law, H.R.6 would be a windfall for every dirty energy and waste industry 
(and many in corporate agribusiness), but a disaster for consumers, 
taxpayers, and the environment.  We need senators to filibuster the 
bill.  This is our FINAL CHANCE to defeat this terrible bill!

TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!  ACT NOW!
Call Your Senators: 202-224-3121

H.R.6: A SPECIAL INTEREST SMORGASBORD
H.R.6, "The Energy Policy Act of 2003," is a regressive package of 
subsidies to the energy industry and an affront to consumers and 
environmental protection.  The legislation was born of Vice President 
Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group (the "energy task 
force"), essentially a congress of energy industry representatives.  The 
policy initiatives put forth by that exclusive, undemocratic group 
ultimately became H.R.6, the industry's dream bill.


Some of the most reprehensible provisions in the bill, as currently 
drafted, include:

ELECTRICITY
* Repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA - our main 
protection from energy market manipulation and fraud), which would allow 
for the expansion of deregulation and more Enron-style debacles.
* Grants the power of eminent domain to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission (FERC) allowing it to seize private land to construct 
transmission lines, virtually eliminating local and state authority.
* Gives the Department of Energy the authority to site transmission lines 
and distribution facilities, requiring only "consultation" with states and 
an opportunity for comment.
* Alters the Federal Power Act's definition of "just and reasonable rates" 
to allow owners of transmission lines to charge consumers more for than 
they use.
* Defines trash burners as "renewable" under a federal purchasing requirement.
* Gives tax credits for burning a variety of contaminated waste streams 
such as poultry waste and sewage sludge.

NUCLEAR
* Extends the Price-Anderson Act insurance subsidy for 20 years to allow 
new nuclear reactors to have a cap on liability in case of a major accident.
* Authorizes more than $2 billion for nuclear energy research and development.
* Authorizes U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Nuclear Power 2010 program 
to construct new nuclear plants and its Generation IV program to develop 
new reactor designs.
* Allocates $865 million for research and development of nuclear 
reprocessing technologies.
* Provides $1.1 billion for a nuclear plant to generate hydrogen, a 
radioactive boondoggle that would make a mockery of clean energy goals.
* Weakens whistleblower protections that were passed in the House energy 
bill by excluding Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
employees and extending the deadline for final decisions on whistleblower 
claims from 180 to 540 days.
* Authorizes more research funding for fusion, a very expensive & 
unnecessary idea, that would still produce radioactive waste.
* Authorizes $30 million to fund "in-situ" leaching mining projects, which 
would encourage a method of uranium mining that could pollute drinking 
water in New Mexico.
* Reclassifies radioactive waste from a former uranium extraction plant in 
Fernald, Ohio, so that it may be disposed in a dump not equipped to 
properly contain the waste's radioactivity, setting dangerous precedent for 
arbitrarily reclassifying radioactive waste.
* Weakens constraints on U.S. exports of bomb-grade uranium.
* Requires NRC to license uranium enrichment facilities within 2 years, 
removing environmental justice from the licensing criteria; also classifies 
depleted uranium (UF6) as "low-level" radioactive waste, all of which 
benefits Louisiana Energy Services, which wants to build a new uranium 
enrichment plant in New Mexico.
* Encourages nuclear proliferation, by reversing a long-standing U.S. 
policy against reprocessing waste from commercial nuclear reactors and 
against using plutonium to generate energy from commercial use.

OIL & GAS
* Gives billions of dollars in tax breaks to the oil and gas industry.
* Tramples on states' abilities to protect their coasts from harmful oil 
and gas exploration by weakening their voice about federal projects that 
affect their coasts.
* Creates a $2 billion program to encourage companies to develop 
"unconventional" gas reserves, including the mature coal-bed methane industry.
* Exempts from the Safe Drinking Water Act a coalbed methane drilling 
technique called "hydraulic fracturing," a potential polluter of 
underground drinking water.
* Waives permit requirements under the Clean Water Act for oil and gas 
exploration.
* Threatens drinking water sources by exempting from the Safe Drinking 
Water Act the underground injection of diesel fuel and other chemicals 
during oil and gas development.
* Threatens public lands in Rocky Mountain states with oil and gas drilling 
at the expense of wildlife habitat.
* Requires the Bureau of Land Management to approve oil and gas drilling 
permits within a matter of days, leaving surface owners and neighboring 
landowners with little opportunity to review and modify these permits, 
which can seriously damage their property values.

COAL
* Authorizes $1.8 billion for research into so-called "clean coal" 
technologies, which are no cleaner than older retrofitted coal plants and 
will result in more greenhouse gas and mercury pollution.
* Requires government purchasing preference for concrete mixed with fly ash 
(the highly toxic fine ash caught in pollution control equipment).  Ash 
weakens concrete and poses a hazard to construction workers.
* Provides tax credits and R&D funding for experiments like a $612 million 
coal-to-oil refinery in eastern PA (the only other one is in South Africa).

MOTOR FUEL
* Increases dependence on foreign oil by adding loopholes that weaken fuel 
economy laws.
* Makes fuel economy standards difficult to update by adding new 
requirements, thus inviting litigation from the automobile industry.
* Extends the fraudulent program that provides flexible fuel credits for 
"dual fuel" automobiles, an enormous loophole which could decimate any 
savings from the Bush administration's puny fuel economy increase.
* Enacts a liability waiver for the manufacturers of the gasoline additive 
methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a known contaminant of drinking water 
and possible carcinogen.

AIR POLLUTION
* Amends the Clean Air Act to extend deadlines by which large metropolitan 
areas must meet federal guidelines governing acceptable ozone levels, 
without requiring more stringent air pollution controls.
* Increases air pollution and global warming with huge new incentives for 
burning coal, oil and gas (over $23 billion in tax breaks).

AGRICULTURE
* Provides tax credits for biodiesel and other fuels made from animal fats 
and wastes.
* Creates a Renewable Fuels Standard, setting up massive subsidies for 
ethanol, including trash and sludge-based ethanol and ethanol produced from 
animal fats and wastes.
* Provides incentives for the direct incineration of animal wastes such as 
poultry litter, which is highly contaminated with arsenic and other 
chemicals which pose dangers when burned.

BIOTECH / NANOTECH
* Advocates using genetically engineered trees to suck up toxic and 
radioactive contaminants from the ground; those trees will likely be burned 
for "green" energy, releasing those contaminants into the air.
* Significant funding is made available for nanotechnology research (a 
technology with both amazing and horrific potential) with hardly any 
government oversight and no public input.

WHAT'S MISSING... What the energy bill does not include is also significant.
* Absent is a "Renewable Portfolio Standard" (RPS) requiring utilities to 
progressively incorporate renewable electricity-generation sources into 
their production portfolio, despite a letter from 53 Senators supporting 
this policy.  Even the renewable standards amendment that was being 
considered would have allowed many dirty fuels ("biomass" -- even trash -- 
incineration) to be considered renewable.
* The bill also fails to enact meaningful fuel economy standards or require 
significant reductions of "greenhouse gases" that contribute to the 
phenomenon of global warming.