Wasting energy

HOUSE AND Senate conferees are still working on the final version of the energy bill, but they have already stripped it of the two provisions that would have nudged the nation away from its dependence on fossil fuels. The Senate should reject the all-carrot, no-stick package that the conference committee is putting together.

The Senate had at least voted to require electric utilities to get a minimum of 10 percent of their power from renewable sources, such as wind, by 2020. It also called for a reduction in oil imports by 1 million barrels a day in 20 years. The House insisted on dropping both of these limits on the nation's unslakeable appetite for fossil fuels. What is left is a candy store of tax breaks and subsidies for both the highly profitable oil and gas companies and the more struggling alternative energy producers. But the latter would do better if utilities were required to include renewables among their power sources or -- best of all -- if Congress were to tax or cap utilities' emissions of carbon dioxide.

The lack of any such carbon tax or cap in the energy bill demonstrates that Congress, like the Bush administration, is blind to global warming. The country is better off with no energy bill at all than with one that ignores this problem and the threat it poses to sea levels, agriculture, the frequency and intensity of severe weather events, and species survival. Nothing in this bill would deter utilities from building the 110 conventional coal plants that are now on drawing boards, according to the Boston-based environmental organization CERES.

The other inexcusable omission in the package is any increase in the fuel efficiency standards for cars and SUVs. Because SUVs are exempt from existing standards for cars, the overall efficiency of US vehicles has actually declined in recent years.

The United States already imports 58 percent of its oil. That share is expected by federal officials to rise to 68 percent by 2025. The energy bill under consideration would not significantly change that trend, leaving the nation more vulnerable than ever to turmoil in such major oil producers as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and Nigeria.

The conferees are about to agree on a bill that neglects global warming; does little or nothing to curb increases in the cost of gasoline, heating oil, or natural gas; and leaves the country as exposed as ever to oil supply interruptions. It is no wonder that Vice President Dick Cheney has worked so hard to hide the identities of the energy company executives on his 2001 task force that came up with so much of this legislation. It is a bill that only industry executives and lobbyists could love, and even they don't want their names on it.