“I look forward to chairing the conference on this bill,” explained Senate Energy Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM). “I promise you we will write many of this year’s energy provisions into the bill at conference. The final bill will look more like what I produced in committee this spring than it will the bill we are passing tonight. Tonight’s bill is just a vehicle to get us to conference.”
For the most part, the bills are largely similar -- each contains a renewable fuels package that would double the use of corn-based ethanol and both fail to require increases in corporate average fuel economy (CAF�) standards. Just before Republicans suggested the bill substitution, the Senate rejected an amendment that would have mandated a 40 miles-per-gallon fuel economy standard for passenger cars by 2015.
Unlike the Republican version, the revived bill, which died in conference committee last year, does not contain hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for the nuclear power industry, according to the Washington Post.
Republicans, eager to pass the legislation before the August recess, also agreed to hold a vote on a bill (S. 139) that would establish a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gases. The bill’s sponsors, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), were considering tacking key provisions of their climate change plan onto the Republican energy bill in the form of an amendment.