Weekly Political Roundup — The Tortoise, The Hare … and the White House
Posted May 22, 2009 at 8:31 am 
Filed in: Memorial Day weekend is a good time for barbecues, beaches, and baseball. It’s also the traditional start of the summer driving season, and while gas prices are not in the headlines the way they were a year ago, nor are they as low as they were just a few months ago. The nationwide average today is $2.39 a gallon for regular unleaded. Gas prices have risen for 24 straight days, an increase that totals 17 percent. Gas prices are not, of course, alone indicative of wider energy security issues, but they offer a window into the public mood and—at this point—emphasize the importance of taking stock of where we stand on energy security issues.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee last night voted 33-25 to approve the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, meeting Chairman Waxman’s ambitious deadline for completion in his committee before Memorial Day. Several other House committees, including Ways and Means and Natural Resources, are expected to take up provisions of the bill. It is likely that the full House will report a bill out before August recess.
In the meantime, the Senate Energy and Resources Committee is continuing at its more deliberative pace. Chairman Bingaman yesterday successfully turned away an effort to remove the RES title from the bill altogether. Earlier this week, the Committee approved an addition to the bill that would create a commission to explore alternative locations (ie, other than Yucca Mountain) for the storage of nuclear waste. The Committee has yet to consider two of the most important titles of the bill: those dealing with electrification and increased domestic supply of oil and natural gas.
The approaches the House and Senate are taking are fairly indicative of the way those bodies typically act. It is easier to move more quickly in the House. Faster, however, is not always better. The Waxman-Markey legislation contains some very positive steps, but in moving so quickly on an “energy” bill, there is the danger that energy security will be left out. At the moment, the legislation fails to address several major energy security issues. That could, of course, still be addressed as the House moves the bill to final passage, but again, House rules do not typically offer nearly the opportunity for changes and amendments during floor debate as the Senate does.
The Senate, on the other hand, while moving more slowly, is also showing more and more encouraging signs that it is serious about the energy security components of any comprehensive legislation. Last week’s Corker amendment during the transmission debate was a step backwards, but it is expected that the language will be corrected when the bill is debated on the Senate floor. More importantly, many of the key players in the Senate – both on and off the Committee—are increasingly indicating that they understand the importance of including key energy security components in the legislation.
Interestingly, however, perhaps the biggest news on the energy security front this week came not from the Hill, but from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. President Obama announced ambitious new rules on Tuesday to increase the national fleetwide average standard for cars and light trucks to 35.5 miles per gallon (39 mpg for cars and 30 mpg for light trucks) by 2016, four years faster than required by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA). The new standards will be applied nationwide. This is a crucial step. Though the House and Senate will hopefully pass legislation that will eventually move our cars and trucks off of oil altogether, increased fuel economy for those vehicles in the interim is a vital piece of the energy security puzzle. Equally as importantly, this policy does things in the right way: by applying standards fleetwide it gives manufacturers and consumers options to still build and buy the cars they want, and by creating a uniform national standard—instead of a patchwork of state rules—it gives the auto industry the regulatory certainly necessary to move forward and produce more efficient vehicles.
Kids still read about the tortoise and the hare. Right now, the fable fits the Senate and House very well. Faster is not necessarily better. And perhaps most importantly, they are not the only runners in this race. This week, at least, it was the White House that made the most difference.
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