Environmentalists call energy bill disaster no matter how negotiations go

Herald ^ | 11/5/03 | H. JOSEF HEBERT

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

The impasse over an energy bill is music to the ears of Anna Aurilio of the environmental group USPIRG and to the Sierra Club's Debbie Boger.

David Alberswerth of the Wilderness Society is rooting just as hard for the energy gridlock to continue.

As lawmakers face off in Congress over the details of a national energy blueprint - the first in 10 years - environmentalists are in wide agreement on one thing: They don't like the bill that is emerging.

"There's little in the bill for the conservation community," says Alberswerth, a land use specialist for the Wilderness Society. "We should be moving in an entirely different direction."

Adds Aurilo, USPIRG's legislative director, "This bill is a disaster any way you cut it. There's nothing good to be said about it. And it's getting worse."

"We already know enough about this bill to know that it should die," says Boger.

For the environmentalists it is no longer an issue over drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge. That victory has been won.

Republican lawmakers are ready to jettison a proposal to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. They're also discarding a requirement for a new inventory of oil and gas resources in offshore waters now under drilling bans after howls from coastal state lawmakers who fear it's a prelude to lifting the bans.

But those changes have done little to attract support from the environmental community.

Neither has the argument by the Bush administration and other of the legislation's supporters that the largely Republican-crafted bill is designed to be balanced and is aimed at spurring new energy development to meet the growing demand for electricity, motor fuels and other energy sources in the decades ahead.

Environmentalists maintain the bill is still a bonanza for traditional, polluting energy industries and gives short shift to measures that cut energy use or promote cleaner renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. And they say it fails to address such issues as climate change or curtailing fuel use by automobiles.

And, contends Aurilio, as the energy talks drag on, the bill from an environmental perspective is getting worse.

This week, Senate Republicans agreed to accept a proposal offered by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas., that would give cities - including the Dallas-Fort Worth and Beaumont, Texas areas - two additional years to meet federal air quality standard for smog. Barton has been pushing the proposal for weeks. Senate GOP negotiators agreed to accept it after the House this week endorsed Barton's proposal.

Barton has said he wants to help cities get more time to deal with air pollution that originates hundreds of miles away - a problem acknowledged by the Clinton administration's EPA which sought similar delays but later was overruled by the courts.

But environmentalists cite other concerns including measures that will make it easier for energy companies to push into pristine areas in search of oil and gas while easing environmental reviews. The bill's supporters say they are only trying to end the bureaucratic gridlock that has prevent companies from development needed energy resources.

Here are other provisions opposed by environmentalists:

_ A measure that would protect makers of the petroleum-based gasoline additive MTBE from product liability lawsuits when it contaminates drinking water.

_ A measure that prevents the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating a method of oil recovery, known as hydraulic fracturing, that critics says threatens drinking water supplies. The oil industry argues no such threat has been proven.

_ Proposals that would allow federal land managers to speed up energy permits, establish "energy corridors" through public lands and give officials new authority to approve energy projects without meeting existing environmental reviews.

_ Tax incentives to promote oil, gas and coal development at the expense of alternative non-fossil energy sources and conservation, adding to concerns about carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.

_ Allowing pipelines, oil wells, roads and other petroleum infrastructure to be build without meeting wastewater runoff requirements that apply to other construction.

_ An easing of restrictions on the sale of federal oil leases on Alaska's North Slope (outside of the Arctic refuge) while avoiding measures to protect wildlife habitat.