“Not the sexiest” is hardly a coveted adjective.
But for a pair of wide-ranging energy bills in a Congress that has failed to pass such legislation since 2007, it is a badge of honor.
Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committees, which released their comprehensive energy bills last week, are optimistic their legislation can pass. While far from transformative, since the bills avoid big hot-button issues, the efforts could usher in real change to the U.S. electricity system and energy markets.
“We’ve been waiting for this legislative action to turn into something for a while. On the House side, it’s not the sexiest bill they could have come up with, but it seems like they’ve done a good job of avoiding any pitfalls,” said Catrina Rorke, energy policy director and senior fellow with the free market group R Street Institute and a former adviser to ex-GOP Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina.
The key is surviving the gauntlet of the Senate floor and, particularly, the potential for a controversial amendment to lift the nation’s 40-year ban on exports of crude oil of getting tacked onto the bill. With Senate floor time being so scarce, any energy bill that comes up often acts as a magnet for other provisions.
“The big question is when it is put on the floor, what else is added? And the big elephant in the room is of course crude oil exports,” former Sen. Bennett Johnston, D-La., told the Washington Examiner.
The energy industry and some Republicans are pushing for an end to the 40-year-old ban on crude exports. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is sponsoring a standalone bill to scrap the ban. But she didn’t include it in her bill knowing that attaching it might turn Democrats against the comprehensive energy package.
The fall presents “the likely window” for a vote on scrapping the ban, said Sen. John Hoeven. Passing legislation will become increasingly difficult once the calendar flips to 2016 and Senate and presidential races grow more heated, the North Dakota Republican said.
“If we’re going to have an energy bill, there’s any number of energy amendments that we’re going to want to offer to that energy bill. I mean everything from oil exports, to Keystone [XL], to coal ash, to you name it. There’s going to be a ton of them,” Hoeven said.
Former Rep. Henry Waxman noted those same problems emerged in the Senate when it tried to pass energy-efficiency legislation from Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a bill that had broad bipartisan support ever since its 2011 introduction.
“It looks like both houses are attempting modest bills,” said the former Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, a California Democrat who retired last year. “But last year the Senate wanted to do a very small, non-controversial energy bill and they weren’t able to do it because people in the Senate can tack things on it. And that what was once non-controversial can become controversial.”
Hoeven noted, however, that it’s likely that amendments would need 60 votes for approval. So, if a measure doesn’t have those votes, it wouldn’t make it onto the bill. Hoeven said the Senate doesn’t have 60 supporters yet for axing the ban, noting that a couple Republicans are “maybes” and that Sens. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, and Heidi Heitkamp, from the oil-producing state of North Dakota, are the only Democrats to publicly support ending it.
But other measures that might attract a veto threat from Obama, such as approving the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, might have enough backers.
And therein lies the difficulty of the Senate.
“My trepidation on the Senate side. Sen. Murkowski has done a pretty tremendous job in terms of leadership … except once it gets to the floor it sort of goes to the zoo of the Senate,” Rorke said. She said other developments, such as the expected August finalization of Environmental Protection Agency carbon emissions limits for power plants, which is opposed by Republicans and centrist Democrats, also could spark amendments that threaten the bill.
“I have repeated to colleagues that it’s my desire to move a bill through committee that will have bipartisan support. So I am not going to suggest that members on either side will want to introduce poison pills, but there are just issues that come up that make things more difficult for one side than another,” Murkowski said.
For the House, the threat of the power plant rules prompting amendments is limited because a bill to block the regulation already has been introduced, Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., told reporters last week.
The possibility of an amendment on crude oil exports is real. While the House bill cleared the Energy and Power subcommittee, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, signaled he might try to attach his bill to kill the crude oil export ban at the committee markup in September.
Oil companies are clamoring for an end to the ban, as refinery executives for ExxonMobil, BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron wrote a letter to committee leaders last week advocating for scuttling the policy. But it’s likely that Murkowski doesn’t feel she has the votes to bring it up now, Johnston said.
“There’s an inevitability that crude oil exports will come up in one form or another, and my guess is it comes up on this bill,” he said.
Democrats, meanwhile, have said they’re not fully satisfied with the House bill because it doesn’t do enough to address climate change. Their environmentalist allies slammed the bill, and discussions between committee leaders could add provisions that are controversial for either side.
But in a sign that underscores the cautious optimism regarding the bills, Democrats joined Republicans on the Energy and Power panel to advance the bill through a unanimous voice vote.
“Much work remains and the final product is far from assured,” said Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the panel.
