On this issue I am not conflicted. I think Bush economic policy is weak and that the administration was tried to clamp on to issues like forest fires and the blackout to piggy back special interest perks for their corporate friends in the energy industry.

I would have voted no and the MTBE exemption alone would have done it for me.
Towns with MTBE problem glad energy bill derailed

CCAGW Objects to Pork-Laden Energy Bill

Yeah, the MTBE liability limitation insisted upon by the House Republicans was a bad joke. So those companies can leak MTBE into our ground water and they DON'T have to clean it up? Thanks, Tom DeLay!

Meanwhile, the list of your "special interest" items actually has some good things on there.

First, ethanol is what's used to replace MTBE in gasoline, so helping to increase its production makes sense in the short term (ah, but if only these things would ever expire!).

A pipeline to move oil down from Alaska would eliminate the need for tankers to get oil from Alaska down to the West Coast. How much would it save, if anything, in the long term? I don't know, but it's something worth looking into.

$1.2 billion for the hydrogen car smells of pork, just because it's not large enough to actually have any effect on getting those cars -- and the infrastructure necessary to support them -- into the public's hands. Either fund it for real or stop playing around!

The $800 million loan to build the Minnesota is not bad if the loan gets repaid with appropriate interest.

The learning center is definitely porcine.

And the thing that bugs me is that no one was willing to touch ANWR, although we are currently pumping oil about 100 miles to the west and that's not damaging the environment AND the oil from there is starting to slack off. So we'll need to replace that source of oil or else we'll end up importing more from those wacky places in the Middle East. You can check out my Blog to read more about what I discovered about ANWR (link's in the signature); they should go ahead and use the techniques they already learned to start pumping out of ANWR (instead of traipsing all over the Alaskan interior doing more damage searching for the "needle in the haystack" oil deposits there, as is the current Dept. of Interior plan).

I would have voted "NO" because of the MTBE thing. Our ground water is polluted enough...no need to make it worse.

Other than the MTBE, the other things look good.

I would've voted no because I probably would not have had enough time to have read it all. Also, Kucinich called the bill a sham.

Lets remember who mandated the MTBE - the government.


I still would have voted no. Too much pork including the ethanol section put in by Daschle and the reason he supported the bil.

It is wahington pork at it's worst

Definitely no, it's way too full of pork. If I were President I'd send it them and make them fix it.

Some of the pork is in there because the President and Vice-President want it there. It's not like this energy bill was invented by the House Republicans in a vacuum.

Maybe so, but I were President I would still send it back and make them fix it. Maybe Bush wants some of that pork, but he ain't me.

Let’s not forget the Dems amf. Daschle signed on in return for a big ethanol subsidy for his constituents. This bill is loaded with pork for BOTH parties.

I don't forget them at all; when they were in charge, pork flowed freely as well to their constituents (especially to West Virginia).

But I don't think the ethanol production funds were that much pork. See my posting above as to why and as to where I see the pork and where I don't.

Well amf these two items are nearly the same:
$2.9 billion in corporate welfare for some of the wealthiest
corporations in the fossil fuel industry.

* $2 billion -- double its past subsidy -- for ethanol production in the
Corn Belt.


And I would like to see more details on the “corporate welfare” issue. What is it for? Remember corporation need to be given an incentive to develop and deploy processes and products that will help us reduce our energy use. I feel this is the proper use of government funds. Unless of course the government itself is going to develop the products and/or process. I think the ethanol bill is pure pork – 100%. We can get more than this amount of fuel from ANWAR and it’s a shame that the left in the environmental movement has apparently stopped this.

Ethanol is what's used to replace MTBE as a gasoline additive. The same MTBE that is going to be subject to lots of lawsuits for contaminating our groundwater. So replacing it is a good thing and increasing production of ethanol in order to replace it is reasonable. Although, like I said earlier, I'd like to see the subsidy be a short-term one, but subsidies are unfortunately rarely short-term. Ethanol is not being used in this case as a fuel.

As for ANWR, I happen to agree that the ANWR controversy is being badly managed. If the facts actually get out there -- like the fact that we're drilling merely 100 miles from ANWR and haven't had an environmental catastrophy there like the environmentalists predicted we would; or the fact that the oil currently flowing from that field 100 miles away is starting to dwindle, so we need a replacement soon -- then folks would get on board drilling there.

But both parties failed on this part. It didn't even make it into the bill.

Yes ethanol is being used as a fuel and the need for it as such has not impressed me – yet.

I agree with you on ANWAR but it seems so few people know the facts that they just go along with the nutty environmentalists as a knee jerk reaction.

Did you know that the area proposed for drilling was set aside by Congress 25 years ago – as an OIL RESERVE!

I met a man who lived in Alaska and worked the oil pumping area. He said they are fanatic about not letting a drop of oil even touch the ground there. They use highly absorbent material everywhere to absorb even the few drops that do fall.

Of course pipelines are vulnerable to accident or terrorist attack and need to be protected.

Well, I am a man from Alaska, and believe me, the oil companies do have some problems up here, one of the largest is allowing the pipeline to basically start falling apart, to the point that we had a large group of engineers, over 80% of them, go to the Omnibudsman and complain about maintenance cutbacks endangering the pipeline and apply for whistleblower protections. The next governer, a republican, Murkowski, did away with the office of Omsbudsman, and it is debated whether this is payback for the oil companies, I personally don't have an opinion on that one really, there are pros and cons to that, too long to list, it just looks real suspicious in that context as well.

The problem with ANWR is the hyperbole on both sides. I support it as an Alaskan jobs helper. Well it help us on our foriegn dependence on oil? LOL No, LOL several times no, heck, there is not even an American company up there pumping it LOL- it is total fina elf and BP that own all the leases up there, a (gasp) french company and a British company, that sell thier oil to the highest bidder, which is the right thing to do, unless we are going to nationalize all our oil fields in America (socialism anyone? LOL)- But on the other side of the coin, DRILLING for oil is going to do no damage whatsoever to the enviroment, that is a flat out lie. The oil companies have an outstanding enviro record up here at the oil platforms, and in fact, caribou and polar bear numbers have CLIMBED since they have been there. Drilling is not dangerous, but moving it is. Remember our greatest enviromental catastrophe was in Prince William sound, NOT prudhoe bay, over a thousand miles away from where we pumped it out of the ground!

So, as an energy bill, and ANWR being all fired important to US energy, that is pure poppycock as far as the energy standpoint, though it would be good for the Alaskan economy, and probably create some federal economic revenue.

Now, one opportunity that was really lost is forcing the companies to get off the pot when it comes to the natural gas reserves. They want HUGE subsidies to develope these fields, a guaruntee of profitiblilty, with no risk to themselves, with the possibility of payoffs that make the prudhoe bay profit seem like chump change, and they really did think they could get this out the uber-friendly to oil pres we have. Our own senator (a republican as well) has attempted to put some punishment on the oil companies if they sit on these reserves much longer, but it went no where in this bill, which is unfortunate. There is also some political manuevering about where to run the gas pipeline, through Canada or Alaska.

I think one of the greatest reasons for not passing this bill is not forcing the oil companies that hold the leases to the natural gas reserves to "excrement or get off the pot" with these leases, because there would be some actual net energy and security benefit to developig these reserves. Right now these reserves are the largest in the world, and would keep the US in natural gas, without ANY foriegn help, FOR YEARS. They say it is the largest reserve of Natural gas in the world, several times over.