By BRIAN SCHEID, Bucks County Courier Times
For the first time in more than 30 years a major increase in federal fuel efficiency standards for cars and small trucks could be signed into law before the end of the month. But environmentalists aren't entirely pleased.
“It's a bittersweet victory,” said Peter Wray, chairman of the Sierra Club's climate change network.
While environmentalists celebrated the likely
possibility of new gas mileage standards Friday, they blamed Republican
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter for standing in the way of a much
stronger bill that they said would have spurred renewable energy and
heavily taxed big oil companies.
On Thursday night, the Senate passed an energy
bill that will require automakers to increase fuel economy by 40
percent by 2020, raising the automobile industry average to 35 miles
per gallon over the next 12 years.
The bill was approved by a vote of 86-8, but
Wray said the bill was “much weaker” than a bill that fell one vote
short of overcoming a Republican filibuster. That bill, similar to a
version approved by the House a week earlier, included tax credits to
increase the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar and
called for a rollback of nearly $14 billion in tax breaks for oil
companies.
“We definitely regard this as a victory, but
it's not nearly as big a victory as it should have been,” said Nathan
Willcox, an energy and clean air advocate with PennEnvironment, a
statewide environmental advocacy group. “It's actually really pathetic
that we couldn't get a stronger version of this bill through.”
Willcox and Wray both called Specter the
“deciding vote” in the fate of the stronger bill. Democratic leaders
got 59 votes, including nine from Republicans, to vote to close
debate on the stronger bill, one short of overriding a filibuster
against the new taxes.
Specter voted against cloture largely for
procedural reasons, including concerns that there was no conference on
the bill and that he believed promises had been broken between
Democratic leaders and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the Republican's
lead negotiator on the bill.
Willcox, however, said there was “no excuse”
for rejecting the bill, particularly because of procedural issues
Specter may have had.
“Given the importance
of energy issues, this bill should have been considered on substance,”
Willcox said. “In that vote at least [Specter] is not in touch with the
general public in Pennsylvania.”
In a statement Friday morning, Specter called
the energy package passed by the Senate “the first step on a very, very
significant matter of trying to relieve our dependence on OPEC oil.”
“I'm sorry that the Energy Bill does not
include provisions for increased use of renewables for electricity,
like hydropower and solar and wind,” Specter said. “But we're taking it
a step at a time, and to require that gasoline mileage go to 35 miles
per gallon is a very, very significant step and is very, very important
in our quest to get free of OPEC oil.”
In a phone interview Friday, Congresswoman
Allyson Schwartz, D-13, expressed similar sentiments about the
Senate-approved plan that the House will likely vote on next.
“It is not as big, as full-blown, as
comprehensive as the House version,” Schwartz said. “Nonetheless it is
historic and important.”
Along with a new gas mileage standard, the bill
calls for a sevenfold increase of ethanol by 2022 and increased energy
efficiency for appliances and in federal and commercial buildings.
Adam Abrams, a spokesman for Congressman
Patrick Murphy, D-8, said the Senate's bill was a first step in
reducing the country's dependence on foreign oil.
“Congressman Murphy prefers that it would have
been stronger, like the version in the House, but this is something
that's critical to our nation's future and we will continue to build
off that,” Abrams said.
Murphy's district includes Bucks County, some
districts of Abington, Upper Dublin and Upper Moreland in Montgomery
County and two wards in Philadelphia. Schwartz's district includes the
majority of Montgomery County and Northeast Philadelphia.
