EEE会議（Ｒｅ:米国のエネルギー法案：積み過ぎで結局沈没！）..........................................03.11.27


ここ数日来山場を迎えていた米国の包括的エネルギー法案は、ブッシュ
大統領、チェイニー副大統領以下ホワイトハウスの総力を上げての議会工
作も功を奏せず、結局上院で僅か２票の差で否決され、廃案となったようで
す（共和党の６議員が民主党と一緒に法案阻止に回ったため）。主たる敗因
はやはり、「積み過ぎによる沈没」、つまり、あまりにも共和党（Domenici上院
議員ら）ペースでごり押しをしたこと、あまりにも産業界利益を優先したこと、
地元への補助金等のばら撒き(pork-barrel politics)により巨額の財政負担を
伴ったこと、環境への配慮が欠けていたこと等のようです。

これで１０年振りといわれた米国のエネルギー政策の大転換も法的根拠を
得るに至らなかったわけで、今後大統領選挙戦との絡みもあり、ブッシュ政
権がどういう形で巻き返しを図るか、また、今回の敗北で同政権が意図する
エネルギー政策（エタノール計画、水素エネルギー計画を含む）の遂行に
どの程度の影響が出るか、とくに多額の政府財政援助が期待された原子力
発電所新設計画等への影響が懸念されるところです。

詳細は次のNew York Times(11/26)の報道でどうぞ。ただし、いつもながら、
同紙は元々民主党色がつよく、共和党主導のエネルギー法案に当初から
批判的であったことを念頭に入れてお読みください。
--KK

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Even With Bush's Support, Wide-Ranging Legislation May Have Been Sunk by
Excess

By CARL HULSE

Published: November 26, 2003

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25  In the end, the energy bill that fizzled in the last
days of Congress was undone by an overload.

Lawmakers, lobbyists and others who took part in the effort to enact the
first significant changes in national energy policy in a decade said on
Tuesday that the measure, which fell two votes short of passage, had too
much for industry, cost too much, was written with too little Democratic
help and was too much in the shadow of the Medicare fight.

"I think the best approach would be to start from a clean slate next year,"
said Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire, one of six Republicans who
along with Democratic critics blocked the measure from being sent to
President Bush, who has been pursuing an energy bill since early in his
term.
Even last-minute intervention by Mr. Bush could not break the impasse. On
Monday evening, he telephoned Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the House
majority leader, to see if there was room for compromise on the provision
raising the strongest objections, immunity from pollution lawsuits for
makers of the gasoline additive MTBE, some of which are based in Houston,
near Mr. DeLay's hometown.

According to a spokesman for Mr. DeLay, the majority leader told the
president that the immunity was a bipartisan bargain that had passed easily
in the House and won 58 votes in the Senate, and that he wanted to stick
with it. Senate Republicans then threw in the towel for the year on the $31
billion bill, which would use more than $23 billion in tax breaks to
increase domestic energy production and efficiency while improving the power
grid.

On Tuesday, the authors of the bill said they intended to bring the measure
back early next year. In the meantime, Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican
of New Mexico, the main Senate author of the measure, told his colleagues
that they should not hope for a repeat of last summer's blackout.

"If there is," Mr. Domenici said, "the American people are going to ask why.
And we're going to tell them, because we did nothing."

Industry officials joined him in warning that the failure to send the energy
measure to Mr. Bush would slow the development of mandatory rules to enhance
the reliability of the power grid. The measure would give the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission six months to develop those standards and the
commission had already set a Dec. 1 hearing to begin the process.

"There are a lot of consequences to not moving forward with the energy
bill," said Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, an
industry association.

Lobbyists for the wind energy business, which would have received help
through an extension of a production tax credit, said the tax break would
expire next month. "It is impossible for the U.S. wind industry to maintain
a steady growth rate in the present climate of uncertainty," said Randall
Swisher, head of the industry trade association.

Critics of the measure said it was unlikely it would have prevented last
summer's blackout. They said there were few immediate benefits for consumers
worried about heating costs or gasoline prices and that the proposal ? drawn
up by Mr. Domenici and another industry ally, Representative Billy Tauzin,
Republican of Louisiana ? had become weighted down with pet projects for an
array of special interests.

"They wrote a completely pro-industry bill and they basically pushed people
over the edge," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and an
organizer of a filibuster last week, who said the bill did not represent an
overarching energy policy.

The role of the president illustrated the importance the White House placed
on the proposal. Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, both former oil
industry executives, took office promising new approaches to energy policy.
A task force led by Mr. Cheney laid the groundwork for some of the
legislation in 2001.

Mr. Cheney was also contacting lawmakers in the past few days to break the
impasse and had earlier helped settle a House-Senate disagreement over a
separate element of the bill. Administration officials expressed frustration
at the failure to get the bill passed.

"It is past time to get serious and tackle the job at hand," Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham said on Tuesday.

But it might not be easy to enact a bill in 2004. Lawmakers say the
conference committee that wrote the final measure was dissolved after the
House easily passed the energy legislation. So the Senate either has to pass
that bill, perhaps making changes through separate legislation, or start
fresh and potentially renew a full-scale energy debate in Congress.

"They don't have easy choices," said Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of
Washington and another filibuster organizer.

Ms. Cantwell said the authors should consider trying to advance energy
provisions that can pass, like the grid reliability standards, and jettison
the others. "You can't have good energy policy held hostage for bad energy
policy," she said.

Mr. Domenici indicated he was not interested in trying to pass the measure
piecemeal, though he has said he is willing to eliminate the protection for
producers of MTBE. But that could fracture the legislative bargains that
make up the energy plan.

Mr. DeLay and Mr. Tauzin, among others, pushed for immunity from product
liability lawsuits for refineries that produce the additive as well as $2
billion for those companies to convert to production of other fuels. In
exchange, they accepted an expansion in the use of corn-based ethanol as an
additive. If the MTBE producers lose out, House Republicans are less
inclined to help the ethanol industry, which is crucial to Midwestern
support for the measure.

"We have a carefully crafted compromise, and once you start pulling the
strings out of the compromise, it becomes difficult to keep as a sweater,"
said Frank Maisano, a spokesman for a group of MTBE producers.

The bill's future is also complicated by 2004 being an election year,
because contentious legislation can be difficult to enact when the parties
are jockeying for advantage and unwilling to hand the opposition any
successes.

The energy bill, however, also contains scores of projects, like the ethanol
program, that lawmakers could tout in their re-election bids. The last
significant energy measure was enacted in 1992 and was signed by President
George Bush at the height of his re-election campaign.

Mr. Domenici and other lawmakers said the stalemate was an example of the
difficulties in drafting energy policy, an area where regional clashes
dominate and efforts to help one sector often end up drawing opposition from
another.

"It isn't going to be easy," Mr. Domenici said, "but neither has it ever
been easy to pass an energy policy in this country."
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