Friday Political Roundup–A Big Week to Kick off Summer Driving Season
Posted May 28, 2010 at 8:33 am 
Filed in: Electrification, Energy Efficiency, Energy Supply, Legislation It has been a busy week on the energy front.
Events in the Gulf continue to unfold, with BP moving through its ‘top kill’ procedure as President Obama took to the podium to, as the Washington Post put it, “quell doubts about his handling” of the spill. Reverberations in the political world were felt far and wide, from the firing of Minerals Management Service Director Liz Birnbaum to the administration’s announcement of an extended moratorium on deepwater drilling.
In the meantime, Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate are looking for ways to get off of oil all together. Yesterday, as reported extensively in this space, bipartisan legislation designed to advance the widescale deployment of electric vehicles and to develop the infrastructure needed to support them was introduced in both chambers of Congress. The bills, which echo recommendations put forward by the Electrification Coalition—a partner organization of Securing America’s Future Energy— propose a path forward in which geographic areas would compete to be selected as electrification “deployment communities,” in which a wide array of financial incentives would be employed so that all of the elements of an electrified transportation system are deployed simultaneously.
The Senate bill, S3442, is entitled the “Electric Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010,” and was introduced by Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR). The House legislation, HR5442, is entitled the “Electric Drive Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010,” and is being cosponsored by House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA), Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL), Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-CA).
Bipartisan, bicameral agreement is rare in Washington these days. The fact that electrification of transportation is attracting the support of high profile members of both parties in both chambers is a sign. Cosponsors in the House and Senate, in fact, pointed out that this issue is not just bipartisan—it is nonpartisan. Oil dependence represents a very real threat to our entire nation, and electrification is looking more and more like the solution that policymakers have been looking for.
Though it didn’t grab as many headlines, there was one more important piece of energy news this week: President Obama’s announcement Monday of a plan to put into place the first-ever fuel efficiency standards for medium- and heavy-duty trucks. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks are responsible for nearly 20 percent of the fuel demand of our transportation fleet, but—prior to the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, were never subject to fuel efficiency standards. Securing America’s Future Energy worked throughout the year to help create and support the Heavy-Duty Fuel Efficiency Leadership Group, a diverse coalition of medium- and heavy-duty fleets and technology providers who advocated for this action. FedEx, a member of the Leadership Group, mentioned our contributions to this effort prominently in their blog on Thursday.
So it was a big week for energy leading into the Memorial Day weekend, which traditionally kicks off the summer driving season. The question now—in the Gulf as well as in Washington—is what happens next. Sealing the leak is not a long-term solution. The best way to reduce the dangers of oil production is to use less oil, and the best way to do that is to end our transportation system’s utter dependence on petroleum. The upcoming weeks and months will be crucial for that effort.
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