US Senate panel adopts Bush's hydrogen car program
Date: 10-Apr-03
Country: USA
Author: Tom Doggett
To help reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, President George W. Bush wants to spend $1.3 billion on research over the next five years to develop hydrogen-powered cars, service stations and other infrastructure to supply the fuel.
A hydrogen fuel cell acts like a battery, converting hydrogen and oxygen into water and producing electricity to power an automobile motor or other devices.
While the Senate panel continues writing a broad energy bill this week, the full House of Representatives is set to begin debate Wednesday or Thursday on its version of the bill.
The Senate and House bills are expected to clash on a major issue - drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The House bill would give oil companies access to the pristine refuge, a key plank in the Bush administration's energy proposal. However, the full Senate voted last month to keep the refuge closed, as part of a massive spending bill.
HYDROGEN CAR MOTORS AHEAD
On the Senate Energy panel, both Democrats and Republican lawmakers endorsed the president's hydrogen car plan.
However, Republicans voted down a Democratic proposal to have 100,000 hydrogen-powered cars on the highway by 2010, and 2.5 million vehicles ready by 2020.
Democrats said goals were needed to spur automakers, arguing the White House proposal stopped short of making the cars a commercial reality.
Republicans disagreed, saying the government should not dictate what consumers buy and the market should decide how many hydrogen cars should be produced and when.
"Getting hydrogen fuel cell technology on the street, whether in federal fleet vehicles or family cars, will save billions of barrels of oil in the next decade," said Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat. The panel approved Wyden's amendment to require at least of 15 percent of federal vehicle fleets to use hydrogen-powered cars or trucks by 2015.
The hydrogen car program is part of a broad bill to update U.S. energy policy, which the panel began debating this week.
Lawmakers also approved a wide range of energy efficiency provisions in the legislation, which would reduce the energy use by exit signs in buildings, traffic signals, ceiling fans and vending machines.
The bill also would require the federal government to trim the amount of energy consumed in its buildings by 2 percentage points a year from 2004 through 2013.
Separately, lawmakers agreed to streamline federal regulations for relicensing hydropower dams, a move welcomed by states in the Pacific Northwest that depend more on electricity generated by dams than other parts of the country.
The legislation also would provide $3.4 billion a year for the federal program that helps low-income families pay their heating and cooling bills.
OIL, NATGAS
Yesterday the Senate panel continued writing its energy bill and debate oil, natural gas and coal programs. Nuclear and climate change issues will be taken up Tomorrow.
The committee then takes a two-week spring recess with the rest of Congress, returning on April 29 to debate the bill's research, transportation fuels and Indian energy sections.
A controversial electricity provision is scheduled to be debated on April 30, the last day of scheduled work on the bill. Lawmakers will be asked to decide whether to rein in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which has been bitterly criticized by utility regulators in the West and South for proposing new grid management rules.
The Senate panel has set a goal of sending the energy bill to the Senate floor on May 1 for a vote later in the month.
Both bills are also expected to offer billions of dollars in tax incentives to promote domestic oiL and gas drilling.
Differences in the Senate and House energy bills would eventually have to be reconciled in final legislation that is acceptable to both chambers before it can be sent to the president for his signature.
