OVEC Action Alert - September 30, 2002

Please Make Calls on the National Energy Policy TODAY

As you know, the House and Senate passed different versions of a national energy bill, both of them woefully short sighted in terms of leading the country away from our deadly dependence on fossil fuels. House and Senate conferees are now attempting to hammer out the differences between the two bills. They do this even as Vice President Dick Cheney is STILL refusing to divulge to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, which fossil fuel big wigs he, Secretary Norton and others repeatedly met with as the Bush administration solidified its More Oil, More Coal, More Nukes energy policy.

Sen. Byrd has said he may vote against the compromise bill that may emerge from conference if it does not contain provisions that address global warming. The Sierra Club, and more “mainstream” analysts have said the measures now under consideration would actually increase our dependency on foreign oil. Many legislators are still pushing for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which would most likely offer only a couple months worth of our oil use, in exchange for long-term environmental damage in a wilderness area. If you compare the dollar amounts of incentives and subsidies offered for cleaner alternative energies versus fossil fuels, you’ d see that energy conservation, energy efficiency measures and alternative energy research and development are drastically short changed in the bills under consideration.

Please call your Reps. And Senators. Their numbers are posted at on the OVEC website:
Senators
Representatives

According to news sources, in the energy bill: “Pending are provisions that would give tax breaks to coal companies, nuclear power operators and small domestic oil producers, as well as royalty relief for oil and gas producers.”

Let them know the nation will be better off if this bill, which originated from Cheney’s secretive meetings with his fossil fuel buddies, dies in conference. Tell your legislators you want to see legislators come up with a type of Marshall Plan that moves the country out of the carbon (fossil fuel) era and into the new hydrogen economy. Europe is enacting policies that will move the Union into the hydrogen economy. Why can’t the United States take a leadership role in developing a new, cleaner energy economy? If we are serious about homeland security, we will make this move to wean ourselves off foreign oil and mountaintop-removal derived-coal.

Perhaps this forward vision is just too radical for politicians heavily funded by the fossil fuel industries. So, if they won’t listen to this argument, please give them these points concerning the energy bill now in conference:

--Absolutely no drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge!

--Yes to the Senate’s provision for renewable electricity standard, which would require investor owned utilities to increase sales of electricity from renewable sources to 10% by 2020. Apparently, even this paltry 10 % figure is just too much for the House to fathom. However, this rate is highly doable, even with the current mere wink and a nod of support the government is giving to renewables. Maine, for one has a renewable energy standard of 30% !

(Sen. Rockefeller is on the conference committee and he needs to hear from West Virginians in support of a strong renewable standard. He was impressed with the calls on ANWR. Let's impress him again! And ask your friends to do the same.)

Below are links to more information (also available by following the news links on our home page or news archive:

In West Virginia, Electrical Power Takes New Tack : D.C. Area to Get Supply From Windmills

Provision is key to Byrd vote

The Hydrogen Age: This power source could usher in an era of global equity and ecology

Cheney Argues Against Giving Congress Records

Ethanol earmark advances in US energy bill talks

Danish wind stocks jump on orders and US news

Also see: The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Stop The Drilling

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