Senate Considers Moving Towards Energy Only Package

Shannon Crawford, Manager of Legislative and Regulatory Programs, SWANA

It appears as though in the current political climate (no pun intended) the only form of climate change legislation that has a chance of passing would be that with a strong focus on energy provisions and less focus on a cap-and-trade system. The language in the recently released Kerry-Lieberman draft (which was to be the vehicle for climate change legislation this year) includes significant incentives for offshore oil drilling and provisions that would open up new tracts of land to drilling. After the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico these provisions are extremely unlikely to pass and must be abandoned in order for any legislation to move forward.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has called on the chairpersons of various committees to begin examining a number of bills that can be combined into one large energy package. The bills under consideration include: S.1462, American Clean Energy Leadership Act of 2009; S.3442, Electric Vehicle Deployment Act of 2010; S.3495, Promoting Electric Vehicles Act of 2010. All of these bills include incentives to promote clean energy such as renewable energy and a more efficient usage of power through electric vehicle and energy efficient measures.

In an effort to address the crisis in the Gulf these bills would be combined with S.3516, Outer Continental Shelf Reform Act of 2010. This legislation would place much stricter standards on offshore oil drilling operations.

A positive of this legislation for the solid waste industry is that S.1462 includes a renewable portfolio standard (RPS). This RPS would allow both landfill gas and waste-to-energy to qualify as renewable sources of energy to help states meet their mandated quota under the bill. The

Senate is expected to begin markups on the package later this week.

For any questions please contact me directly at 240.494.2241 or scrawford@swana.org.