By Ryan Tracy | The Wall Street Journal
After a years-long lull, the full Senate is finally set to debate an energy bill, but the measure’s slimmed-down profile represents a stark departure from the last decade.
President George W. Bush signed two energy laws, in 2005 and 2007, that rewrote government policies in every major energy sector, from natural-gas drilling to corn-based ethanol fuel. In President Barack Obama’s first term, the economic-stimulus law contained billions of dollars of new federal spending to jump-start wind and solar power. And the House passed a broad bill capping greenhouse-gas emissions in 2009 that failed to make it through the Senate.
This time, the Senate is looking at budgeting about $35 million a year to help businesses conserve energy and handing out stars to the ones that do it well.
“It’s a skinnied-down version,” said co-sponsor Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican. “We have made some changes to it to accommodate some of the concerns, particularly that some Republicans had.”
If you’d like to discuss energy issues, contact Court Rich, Co-Chair of Rose Law Group’s Renewable Energy Department at crich@roselawgroup.com
