Department of Energy
The Bush administration’s energy policy, especially the Energy Policy Act of 2005, undermines environmental and consumer production; it includes provisions that violate the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act for the sake of oil and gas drilling.
Congress has created an energy bill that has failed to diminish America’s dependence on foreign oil, does not deal with the threat of global warming, neglects the need for investments in clean energy, and by the President’s own confession, fails to aid civilians at the gas pump. In regards to the solving of America’s energy woes, the bill is an utter failure. Here are some of the worst provisions in this bill:
1. Threatens drinking water by amending the Safe Drinking Water Act to allow the unregulated underground injection of chemicals during oil and gas development and during geothermal energy development. [Section 322]
2. Grants the oil and gas industries an exemption for their construction activities from compliance with Clean Water Act provisions that require all types of construction activities to reduce polluted runoff from these sites. [Section 323]
3. Provides billions of dollars in subsidies to the nuclear industry, including $2 billion risk insurance program for up to six new reactors that was not included in either the House or Senate passed energy bills. [Nuclear title; risk insurance was added as an amendment in conference]
4. Includes dangerous provisions to allow harmful underwater oil and gas exploration that could pave the way for offshore drilling along America’s coastlines. [Sec. 357]
5. Repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the main law to protect consumers from market manipulation, fraud, and abuse in the electricity sector. Enron anyone? [Section 1263]
6. Increases air pollution and global warming with more than $6 billion in new incentives to burn coal for electricity. [Coal and R&D titles]
7. Increases America's oil dependence by 130,000 barrels of oil per day in 2014 through extending the 'dual-fuel' loophole. [Title VII, Sec. 772]
Need I say more?
-Ryan Haddad