Bingaman: No time left to change renewable energy bill

Many Republicans are looking to add more sources to the mandate – which requires up to 15 percent of electricity produced nationwide to stem from sources like wind, solar and geothermal by 2021 – including all nuclear and hydroelectric power, as well as coal produced using carbon capture and storage technology.
 
“Obviously you don’t want to be too dogmatic about anything in Congress, you want to get something passed,” Bingaman’s committee staff director Bob Simon said at an energy event Wednesday hosted by National Journal.
 
{mosads}But “there has been some flexibility” already injected into a carefully crafted RES that passed Bingaman’s panel last year, Simon said, and is essentially what Bingaman, Brownback and others are now pushing.
 
“It is a product of compromise,” Simon said. “If you put too many things that can qualify into it, then pretty soon the 15 percent does nothing.” 

A quarter of the mandate can be reached through energy efficiency practices.
 
Still, there are Republicans who may not have an issue with the details of the mandate but will balk if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would not allow Republicans to offer amendments in a floor debate.
 
“I’m not going to play ball with anybody that’s trying to cut Republicans off from offering amendments,” said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), who is one of three Republicans, other than Brownback, cosponsoring the stand-alone RES.
 
Given other legislative priorities in a short lame-duck session, the chances an RES will be taken up this year are very slim.
 
Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) Tuesday said it is a “long shot” that something like an RES or any response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill would be taken up, a reality Bingaman acknowledges.
 
“Obviously the problem is Sen. Reid has a long list of things people want him to do in the lame-duck session,” Bingaman said. “Given the level of obstruction around here it’s not possible to do many of those in the time that we’re likely to be here, so he’s going to have to make some tough decisions about what he brings up.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) reportedly was set Wednesday to introduce an alternative to the Bingaman-Brownback RES that would also include nuclear energy, “clean coal” and an expanded definition of biomass, which could lure away potential Republican backers of the Bingaman-Brownback effort.  

Simon listed a handful of energy items – including the RES – that theoretically have enough bipartisan backing to buck election-year politics and pass in short order.
 
Bingaman and Republican Sens. Richard Lugar (Ind.) and Orrin Hatch (Utah) are also among those pushing for an additional $5 billion in tax incentives for expansion of manufacturing plants that can produce green energy components. Last year’s economic stimulus bill gave an initial $2.3 billion but the total number of applications received was about five times that dollar amount, Simon said.
 
The message from the senators is, “Look, the $2.3 billion was out the door in a flash and you can point to real projects that are happening now,” Simon said. “Let’s give it another $5 billion … before we leave town.”
 
Other areas of potential compromise, he said, are appliance and other energy efficiency standards, as well as the creation of a Clean Energy Deployment Administration that would offer financing for alternative energy technologies.

This post was updated at 3:13 p.m.