WASHINGTON -- A major national energy bill, with construction programs and power subsidies in Alaska, cleared a House-Senate negotiating committee Tuesday and is almost ready for final passage in Congress.
The bill has been in the works for more than four years, since President Bush first took office. It includes financial incentives for oil drilling in Alaska and elsewhere in the country, provides risk insurance for nuclear power plants, sets efficiency standards for battery chargers and heaters, and lengthens daylight-saving time by four weeks, among many other provisions. It also tells the Interior Department to inventory the nation's offshore oil and gas deposits.
"We will put before Congress the most comprehensive energy legislation in the last 30 years," said U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
A Bush administration proposal to require an oil lease sale in federal waters of salmon-rich Bristol Bay was not included in the bill.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and other supporters of the bill have stressed that it is a "balanced" approach to lessening dependence on foreign energy, meaning that it would boost domestic oil and gas production and also encourage conservation and alternative energies, as well as new technologies.
The bill, though, shifted a bit toward traditional energy production Monday when House members refused to accept a Senate provision that would have required electric companies to eventually produce at least 10 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind and solar.
The $11.5 billion package of tax credits and incentives, which was being finalized Tuesday night, has about $1.5 billion in oil and gas subsidies, Reuters reported, and $3.1 billion in incentives to produce electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources. It also has another $1.3 billion for efficiency and conservation.
Still, environmental groups and Taxpayers for Common Sense complained that it was a giveaway to big energy companies.
Murkowski emphasized the alternative energy aspects in the tax changes. The package includes "a tax production credit for wind turbines, geothermal energy and biomass that may make such projects more viable in Alaska," her office said in a written statement Tuesday night. "The bill includes a $400 mil- lion tax credit to help refineries afford the cost of producing ultra-clean diesel fuels."
The bill has to pass the full House and the Senate one more time, which could happen before Congress takes its August recess at the end of this week.
This bill differs from the energy legislation the president wanted in at least one prominent way: It has no provision for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
Senate leaders believed an ANWR provision would kill the energy bill. Congress, though, may have a refuge-drilling proposal in a budget bill it is expected to take up in the fall.
Among the specific measures in the bill for Alaska:
• Rural energy: The bill authorizes up to $550 million for the Denali Commission over the next decade to fund energy projects in rural Alaska. The uses mentioned in the bill include subsidizing rural energy through the Power Cost Equalization program, power line construction, replacement of fuel tanks, alternative energy and coal gasification. The bill only authorizes the program, meaning that the funds have to be included in future appropriation bills before they can be spent.
• NPRA: The bill extends leases for 10 years and allows oil companies to pay reduced royalties for work in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
• Cook Inlet Oil Enhancement Program: The bill authorizes up to $3 million for a pilot project to see if carbon dioxide injections can extend the life of the Cook Inlet oil field.
• Healy Clean Coal Loan: The bill allows a loan of up to $80 million to remove special "clean coal" technology from the Healy power plant. The $278 million plant, funded by the state and federal governments, hasn't worked since a testing period in the late 1990s. Golden Valley Electric Association says the technology makes it too expensive to operate.
• Gas hydrates: There's a lot of methane trapped in Alaska's ice and permafrost. The bill reauthorizes a research and development program to turn it into usable natural gas.
Daily News reporter Liz Ruskin can be reached at lruskin@adn.com.
