The Energy Bill is being pushed through using every trick in the book. The latest: Bush says he won't insist on drilling in ANWR if they just hand over everything else in the bill. Talk about Mafia style extortion. I suspect that the "threat" of ANWR drilling has been used INTENTIONALLY all along as an extortionary measure: "Give us what we REALLY want and we'll let you keep ANWR (which isn't really the biggest plum we're after anyway)."

Now Congress is deferring the issue (a final vote) until this coming weekend, when, they assume, the media will be full of Bush in the UK. In fact, I bet they even HOPE there are riots there just so they can keep the Energy Bill uncovered and uncared about long enough to ram through. But this bill will affect us ALL for DECADES if allowed to go through. The final incarnation of the bill has FINALLY been released - allowing the public just a few lousy days to go over it, which is not just outrageou, it's UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Didn't the founding fathers have just a wee bit of a problem with the issue of non-representative government?

Here's the bill:
energy.senate.gov/legislation/energybill2003/energybill2003.cfm

UPDATE Nov. 17 4:45 PM: Just heard a section of a session of the Congressional committee working on the bill (the usual last efforts to stuff evil goodies into the bill or to add a few pathetic saving graces like more money for hydrogen fuel cells.

It's breaking down just as predicted: vote after vote n the 13-person committee was 7-6...7-6....7-6, with Bush GOP goons representing the 7, of course, and the Democrats the 6. A proposition to add more money and direction to long term clean technologies like fuel cells....VOTED DOWN.

50 years from now, the grandchildren of those people in Congress who are working so hard to insure environmental devastation and filthy air will be ashamed to admit who their grandfather or grandmother were...sorta the way the grandchildren of Nazis fell today.


INFO FROM MOVE ON: This progressive group of activists is pulling a Paul Revere right now, trying to keep the public's alert at CODE RED on the Energy Bill. Here's their info on what's in the bill, plus where to call, etc.:

This week, Congress will consider final passage of the Bush-Cheney
energy bill. The bill was developed in secret -- first drafted by a
Cheney task force whose very participant list was kept secret, even
from Congress, and now finalized by Republican Senators and House
members who literally locked Democrats out of the final negotiations.

Democrats and the public have been given just 48 hours to review the
1,000-page bill, released Saturday, before voting begins later today.

This is outrageous and simply unacceptable. The last time President
Bush forced something unknown down our throats like this, we got the
USA PATRIOT act.[1] Do we want to let him do to the environment and
our energy supply what he's already done to our constitutional rights?

In the context of recent blackouts and the war in Iraq, all of our
Senators will be under huge pressure to approve an energy bill, even
if it doesn't address the key problems, as this one doesn't - see
below for details. We've got to urge our Senators to stop this bill.

Please call your Senator(s) now, at:

COMPLETE CONGRESSIONAL LISTING:
www.visi.com/juan/congress/

FOR MARYLAND:

Senator Paul S. Sarbanes
Washington, DC: 202-224-4524
Local Phone: 410-962-4436

Senator Barbara A. Mikulski
Washington, DC: 202-224-4654
Local Phone: 410-962-4510

Make sure the staffers know you're a constituent, then urge your
Senators to:

"Please FILIBUSTER to stop the energy bill." [2]
Give some reasons why you're concerned -- such as the secrecy
surrounding the bill, or the harm it would cause, outlined below.

Please take a moment let us know you're calling, at:

www.moveon.org/callmade3.html
Keeping a count will help us stop this bill.

The bill is littered with at least $20 billion in subsidies to the oil,
gas, coal, and nuclear industries. Although the bill is still being
analzyed as of this writing, one credible estimate puts the subsidy
figure at well over $100 billion. [3]

This bill won't solve America's urgent energy problems -- the need to
reduce our dependence on oil by shifting to renewable energy sources,
the need to make America's energy supply more reliable, and the need
to protect all of us who pay utility bills from Enron-style fraud.
Instead, it will make matters worse in most of these areas.

In recent negotiations, it's also become a vehicle for massive attacks
on clean air and clean water laws, which would risk our families'
health and pollute the environment our children will inherit. As Anna
Aurilio of U.S. PIRG put it, "The big winner is big oil. The big loser
is anyone who breathes, pays a utility bill or drinks water." [4]

Here are key excerpts from a recent story in the Washington Post [5]:

No Home Runs in Energy Bill
Little Impact Expected for Imported Oil, Pollution, Power Grid

The energy bill before Congress is a bulky tome of more than 1,000
pages, with thousands of provisions affecting every corner of the
country.

But for all its size, industry officials and environmental activists
of widely divergent viewpoints generally agree that it will have only
a modest impact on the nation's most pressing energy problems,
including its reliance on foreign energy supplies, an overburdened
electricity grid and fuels that pollute the air and may alter the
atmosphere.

For those who want to deal aggressively with the dangers of climate
change and air polluted by auto exhausts, power plants and factories,
the bill is a disappointment.
...

...conservation savings... amount to only about three months of U.S.
energy consumption between now and 2020, according to a preliminary
estimate by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The bill's GOP authors dropped a Senate-approved plan to require
large utilities to steadily increase their use of energy from clean,
renewable sources such as wind and solar power...

The bill does not require improvements in the fuel efficiency of cars
and trucks, the main guzzlers of gasoline made from imported oil. The
current 27.5 miles per gallon average for cars could even decrease in
the next decade because of several provisions in the bill, according
to some analysts...
...

The legislation's most far-reaching feature may be the repeal of the
1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act, which limits utility
industry mergers. The act's repeal is a top priority for the electric
power industry and the Bush administration, and if the bill passes, a
wave of mergers and acquisitions could follow...

[End of Washington Post excerpts]

Repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act is a big problem.
Trashing this vital regulation on utilities would worsen the conditions
that enabled the recent Northeast power blackout. [6]

The bill would also roll back the Clean Air Act, allowing the air we
breathe to stay polluted, in virtually any area where air pollution is
a problem. This change would lead to thousands of additional asthma
attacks, hospitalizations, and emergency room visits nationwide. [7]

And it would threaten our drinking water sources, by letting polluters
off the hook for contaminating groundwater with pollutants like MTBE,
and by lifting Safe Drinking Water Act curbs on injecting diesel fuel
and other chemicals underground during oil and gas development. [8]

These are just a few of the energy bill's worst features. For a
comprehensive list of problems, based on the latest analysis, see:

www.moveon.org/energy-woes.pdf

We've got to urge our Senators to reject this bill. The only way to
stop it is with a filibuster, the Senate's tactic of last resort to
stop especially dangerous proposals from becoming law.

Notes:

[1] "On October 25, 2001, 98 out of 99 voting senators hurriedly passed
the 342-page Patriot Act I - without any public debate and before most
of them had read it." www.villagevoice.com/issues/0313/lee.php

[2] For more information on filibusters, see:
www.moveon.org/moveonbulletin/bulletin11.html
The New York Times has called for a filibuster on this energy bill, at:
www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/opinion/29MON1.html

[3] We've posted a cost analysis by Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office:
www.moveon.org/energy_policy_cost_fact_sheet1.pdf

[4] As reported in the New York Times, at:
www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/politics/16ENER.html

[5] For the full Washington Post story, see:
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46456-2003Nov15.html

[6] For more on the Public Utility Holding Company Act, see:
www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/renewable_energy/page.cfm

[7] Source: U.S. Public Interest Research Group. See:
www.moveon.org/energy-factsheet-pirg.pdf

[8] For details, see:
www.foe.org/camps/leg/current/energyfacts.html
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