Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi: Energy Bill Looks Backward

The American people deserve an energy policy that is worthy of the 21st century, not one mired in the policies of the past. But the energy bill passed by the House of Representatives last month looked backward, not forward. Meanwhile, it did not provide the sound energy policy we need.

Republicans met behind closed doors to write the bill, shutting out House Democrats and the 130 million Americans we represent, while special interests had special access.

The energy bill was almost 1,200 pages long, but Democrats were not allowed to see the text until three days before we had to vote on the most comprehensive overhaul of energy policy in more than a decade.

Once Democrats saw the bill, we knew why Republicans wanted to hide it. It was loaded to the brim with special-interest giveaways and it put the special interests before the public interest.

There are a few table scraps thrown toward clean energy resources and technologies, but for the most part, the bill allows big energy companies to feast on a buffet of new tax breaks. It will cost Americans more than $142 billion over 10 years, mostly in handouts to large companies that are already doing well.

As the Cato Institute and Sierra Club said, on a rare matter of agreement, this bill is "three parts corporate welfare and one part cynical politics."

This bill does not reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It makes it harder to increase fuel efficiency standards. It does not adequately invest in new technologies or promote energy efficiency. It does not protect average Americans from price-gouging and fraud. And it throws important environmental concerns overboard.

Among its environmentally damaging provisions are the following:

· It waives the Clean Water Act for construction at oil and gas facilities;

· It waives the Clean Air Act in communities that are blanketed with smog, hurting millions of children;

· It waives the Safe Drinking Water Act to allow the injection of diesel fuel into the water table;

· It allows the gasoline additive MTBE to remain in use for years to come, even though it pollutes drinking water and is a suspected carcinogen. The bill even makes sure the MTBE industry will not have to pay to clean up water it contaminated. That burden will fall on the people already suffering its effects.

This Congress had the opportunity to craft an energy policy that would boost the economy, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, clean up the environment and protect public health. But instead we have an energy policy that looks to the past, not the future, and gives away huge, unnecessary tax breaks to the Republicans' special-interest friends.

It was typical of the Republicans in this Congress: it was government of the few, by the few and for the few.

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi represents San Francisco in the US House of Representatives and is the House Minority Leader.