U.S. SENATE: Alaska delegation votes for legislation that also mentions conservation.
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate passed a massive energy bill Tuesday that encourages domestic petroleum production, provides tax breaks for renewable energy and says nothing about opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.
The bill passed overwhelmingly, 85-12, with Alaska's two senators, Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, voting with the majority.
Professions of enthusiasm for the bill bubbled up in press statements from across Washington after the vote -- from Senate Democrats, House Republicans and the White House. But the bill differs significantly from the one the House passed in April, and negotiations over the final version are not expected to be easy.
The Senate bill includes more than $18 billion in tax incentives for oil and gas production, wind and ocean power, more efficient homes and gas-electric hybrid cars, among other things. At least $7 billion of the incentives are for renewable energy and conservation.
The House bill is far less expensive and tilts more toward petroleum. The House version would also allow drilling in the arctic refuge, which even senators who favor ANWR drilling say would have killed the legislation in the Senate.
Congress could still pass ANWR drilling legislation this fall as part of the budget process.
The Senate bill authorizes another $36 billion in energy projects, though most of that spending is subject to what Congress approves each year in future appropriations bills.
On climate change, the Senate went further than most people expected a few months ago. It passed a nonbinding "sense of the Senate" stating that:
• So-called greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere and causing average global temperatures to rise;
• There's a growing scientific consensus that human activity is a substantial cause of that gas accumulation; and
• Congress should pass mandatory limits on emissions.
Alaska's senators voted to table the climate change statement -- a procedural move to prevent its passage. It later passed by voice vote.
The Alaskans, though, were in the majority when they voted to kill a measure that would have imposed limits on greenhouse gas emissions.
Murkowski said in a recent interview that she wants to see more science conclusively tying climate change to man-made gas emissions before she would support measures that would harm the U.S. economy.
"We don't know for sure yet," she said. "And if we don't know for sure yet then we ought to be very cautious in terms of those changes we make in anticipation of the problem."
The National Academy of Sciences and the academies of 10 other nations issued a joint statement this month saying there is "strong evidence" that significant global warming is under way.
"It is likely that most of the warming in recent decades can be attributed to human activities," the international statement said.
The Senate did pass an amendment providing government incentives to develop technology to reduce emissions and capture carbon before it goes into the atmosphere.
The bill has a few incentives for offshore oil and gas development. One would allow the government to suspend the required royalty payments for development off Alaska's shores
The bill also orders the Department of Interior to compile an inventory of all oil and gas resources in federal waters, and allows the department to use seismic testing to make its estimates.
Senators from Florida, North Carolina, Washington and other coastal states fought the inventory, saying it would lead to offshore development they don't want, but Alaska's senators voted for it.
Environmentalists say the air guns used in the seismic testing could damage the hearing of fish and whales, interrupting their migration or feeding.
Murkowski's office said seismic work in northern waters traditionally isn't allowed during whale migration seasons.
"We are quite confident that existing environmental restrictions will guarantee no harm to fish and marine mammals should the inventory provision be included in the final energy bill," her spokesman Elliott Bundy said.
Daily News reporter Liz Ruskin can be reached at lruskin@adn.com.
