The Senate passed an energy bill Thursday that contained a long-sought boost in car and truck fuel-efficiency standards, from 25 to 35 mpg — a 40 percent gain and the first real increase in 30 years. The measure is expected to save more than 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2020. This is a real accomplishment for Congress and a major step forward in weaning the nation from its addiction to foreign oil.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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51 Comments
VETO
econpaul is on the tit of the oil companies.
He just proved it.
Who else would be AGAINST saving energy?
econ Paul F Rosell is a wastrell encouraging waste.
Are you going to run away to the early hours when working people are asleep as you always do Paul F Rosell?
The Republicans in the Senate watered down the bill so much it’s practically meaningless. The technology to increase the mpg is already present so the deadline could have been changed to 2010 rather than 2020.
Thanks to the Republicans protecting tax breaks and subsidies for the oil companies (they make a lot of money so in conserveconomics that means they are struggling financially) so it will be no funding for the environmental measures.
Thanks to the Republicans opposing the requirement to provide 15% of our electricity through alternative energy we can be guaranteed to have higher gas and electric costs in the future.
Another failure thanks to the Republicans who control half the Senate and will uphold a Bush veto. If conservatives always had their way we’d all still be stuck on the factory line making 10 cents an hour on a 12 hour work day dying at 35 from black lung disease. But at least we’d be able to work alongside our 8 children.
The CAFE standards have little to do anymore with ’saving’ oil. The high gas prices are a much more effective incentive to increase fuel efficiency.
Leave it to the WE to credit the government as the solution.
Hey, I guess that the Oil & Gas industry forgot to deliver their pay-offs to congress. Was Cheny asleep again , (or hiding in his bunker). Sorry, I forgot…they are lying again.
By the time of 2020 there will be millions of more drivers on our roads, but no more growth in domestic oil production. I.E. we’ll need foriegn oil. Every bit helps though.
Randy Scholfield: Sorry, this proposed “energy bill” would be a major step BACKWARD for America.
According to an article in the Wichita EAGLE a few days ago, “Energy bill raises fuel mileage standards,” the bill “would boost use of ethanol to 36 billion gallons per year by 2022, a nearly sixfold increase …”
According to most estimates I find, every gallon of ethanol produced requires 10 to 18 gallons of “new” water over and above that recycled in the process. So using the 10 gallons figure, some 360 billion gallons of fresh water will be needed.
For several reasons, ethanol plants seem to be proliferating in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma chiefly because of the continued availability of “easy” water from the underground Ogalalla aquifer.
According to my computations, this amount of water needed is about equal to the amount of water now being drawn from the Ogalalla aquifer in those states which is already causing the level of the Ogalalla to drop preciptiously.
FRANKLY IT WON’T BE LONG UNTIL KANSANS ARE LINING UP AT THE OUTFLOW PIPE OF THEIR LOCAL COMMUNITY SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT WITH BUCKETS TO GET THEIR DAILY RATION OF DRINKING WATER. OF COURSE, SENATOR SAM BROWNBACK, SUPPORTER OF THE BILL, WILL NOT BE IN THAT LINE.
Additionally, the Wichita EAGLE energy bill article ends with this ominous line, “Tax breaks for a wide range of clean energy industries including WIND, SOLAR, BIOMASS AND CARBON CAPTURE FROM COAL PLANTS WERE DROPPED FROM THE TAX PACKAGE.”
So hope the U.S. House of Representatives votes down this bill this coming week. And blame Senator Brownback if you should happen to see him for this energy mess in Kansas and the midwestern states.
If anyone spots Ksfarmgrrl flying high above Kansas, please signal her to take a look at this blog and add her valuable comments.
Good one Wink, like usual.
I saw on the news here yesterday that Panda Energy, and Texas based builder of ethanol plants, is abadoning a plant it was building in west central Nebraska. Reasons?
High price of corn, shortages of grain, and water supplies declining faster than predicted.
Go figger.
Thanks to the elimination of tax breaks for wind power Republicans have guaranteed that fewer jobs will be created in Kansas due to the energy companies unwilling to develop new energy sources.
The reason the Republicans wanted the tax breaks out of the bill was because they were going to be paid for by eliminating the subsidies for the oil companies. Exxon-Mobile made more money in a year than any company made in a year throughout history. Yet the Republicans figured they needed more revenue.
heh, funny Wink! I guess I saw the bat signal just in time!
I suppose no one but me has noticed that grain prices are at RECORD highs right now? Wheat closed in WaKeeney at $9.24 on Friday. Just for some perspective, last year I sold my wheat for a little less than $4.00 and I sold some in September for $5.85 and I thought I was a poopin’ in high cotton THEN.
Word is grain prices will continue to go up, especially corn. At least that’s what the talk was at the Co-op before I left.
Ethanol wouldnt exist without subsidies of grain, irrigation, and processing.
Corporate welfare at its finest, but by damn we cant subsidize health care. No siree bob. No welfare for HUMANS. Lotsa welfare for corporations.
As a guy from Eritrea said to me last night “America… what a country…”
Ksfarmgrrl: Thought we might have to wait for a full moon to get the signal to you. However, I guess the giant crop circle over three western Kansas counties did the job! Thanks for tuning in on this issue.
Actually, what Joe from Eritrea said was, that his father came to visit him here one time in the eighties, and he said two things.
One, he couldnt belive how FAT Americans were.
He also said “If God exists, he must surely live in America”.
And as Joni Mitchell said, “Dont it always seem to to that you dont know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. Pave paradise, and put up a parking lot”.
Ethanol X Six!
Trash the environment and burn up our food. Great accomplishment Lib Dem Majority Congress!
Veto this bill!
“This is a real accomplishment for Congress and a major step forward in weaning the nation from its addiction to foreign oil.”Posted by Randy Scholfield
THanks J. Now that the troll problem seems to have subsided, I may post more often again.
Everyone last night also wanted to talk about farm subsidies. I can tell ya, in the cities, they are no fans of the Farm Bill, but they do like the provisions for fruit and veggie growers.
But then, they know I have a produce company and may have just been polite….
Doug, with all due respect, the only thing standing in the way of more wind farms are the construction of transmission lines and the need to back up the windmills with fossil fuel power plants.
The state could subsidize transmission lines WITHOUT the Holcomb plant. We just have to have the will to do it.
However, it is troubling that current battery technology is weak on storing windpower and that means they STILL need backup.
Mostly from coal and natural gas. Wind power is no panacea, but it makes nice sound bites for governor leadership…
We also need, as some have previously stated here, permission to “co-gen” here in Kansas. THey’ve been doing that for over twenty years in Texas. That’s when you produce your own power and can “sell it” back to the utilities by running the meter backwards.
I think rooftop solar and wind will eventually win out over big, monsterous, dangerous and inefficient wind farms. I wish we were subsidizing THAT technology.
Eh, Parkinson and Harkins?
The state could do a lot of things but Republicans control the Capitol. When something as simple as the net metering law was proposed the Republicans killed that even though it wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything.
The boom in wind energy has been a result of tax breaks. We can only hope that foreign companies will have the sense to invest in wind in America but that’ll entail throwing more money to foreign countries, something the Republicans do favor.
Oh yeah, and they were ALL bitchin’ about ethanol and it being a net energy loss and water user. But this WAS a geophysics company party….
When in Alaska this summer in Skagway we were told how each home had their own cistern. A structure about the size of a medium sized shed. This collected rainfall and snow and was the source of each homes water. I have enclosed the link because if the gov doesn’t wake up about the water crisis we may all need one of these.
http://www.uaf.edu/ces/water/water_pipeline.html
The homes in Skagway all have plumbing lines and get their water from wells. The additional tanks may have more to do with the tourism industry than anything else. With a population as small as Skagway’s receiving 750,000 tourists a year that tends to tax the water system a bit.
Wichita certainly doesn’t have to worry about tourists taking away water. :)
However it would be nice if our local or state government would provide subsidies or tax breaks for those who upgrade their toilet, shower head, etc with water saving devices. Actually they may already do the shower head thing but if they made low flow mandatory in hotels then a lot of water could be saved.
Well Doug I was going by what the guide told us. She pointed out that each house had them and they could mine water in this way because of the absence of polution in the area.
The guide didn’t know what she was talking about then. The well water is treated before being put into the water lines and there have been instances of pollutants in the water in the past. Having known some of my high school classmates getting jobs in the Alaskan tourist industry I can tell you they aren’t terribly demanding in the knowledge of local lore.
Well she and her husband have only lived there for 23 years and raised their family there. She is a counselor at a center for recovering alcoholics and drives a bus in her spare time. She told us the #1 crime there is domestic abuse because the winters last so long and they have a alcohol dependency problem there.
But maybe your part time buddies have the inside track on this one.
You can go to the city of Skagway website to find out that your tour guide didn’t know what she was talking about, or perhaps you just don’t know what you are talking about.
Doug why you insist on being so adversarial is beyond me? I don’t have time for the pettiness you seem to crave. I don’t feel the need to be right. Obviously you do.
Doug I am certain you are right about this and our guide/busdriver was wrong. I am sure that the cisterns behind each homes were chicken coops cleverly disguised as cisterns.
Have a great afternoon. I plan to.
Doug: Many of us consider Ksfarmgrrl a valuable resource on this blog. If you have special information on a subject, please discuss it politely. We don’t need a lot of acrimony like we have had in the past. I hope we can make this blog a more enjoyable and informative location.
As I look back, I see it was KsGrm, not Ksfarmgrrl, but the message remains.
“The CAFE standards have little to do anymore with ’saving’ oil. The high gas prices are a much more effective incentive to increase fuel efficiency.
Leave it to the WE to credit the government as the solution.”
Posted by: ProudMan | December 16, 2007 at 07:56 AM
The CAFE standards did help to sharply cut oil use… until Reagan rolled the standards back in 1985, so that Ford and GM would not be fined.
‘Make Fuel Efficiency Our Gulf Strategy’http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Security/S90-26_MakeFuelEffGulf.pdf
“Are we putting our kids in tanks because we didn’t put them in efficient cars? Yes: we wouldn’t have needed any oil from the Persian Gulf after 1985 if we’d simply kept on saving oil at the rate we did from 1977 through 1985.”
More at link.
High gas prices are not very effective at increasing mpg.Feebates, guaranteed loans for retooling costs, “carrots”, and other ideas in this report are needed.http://www.oilendgame.com/ReadTheBook.html
Doug: Many of us consider Ksfarmgrrl a valuable resource on this blog. If you have special information on a subject, please discuss it politely. We don’t need a lot of acrimony like we have had in the past. I hope we can make this blog a more enjoyable and informative location.
Posted by: JWink | December 16, 2007 at 01:12 PM
As I look back, I see it was KsGrm, not Ksfarmgrrl, but the message remains.
Posted by: JWink | December 16, 2007 at 01:34 PM
kfg has her ear very close to the ground on water as well.
She knows who is who and what is what when it comes to water in Kansas.
I depend on her knowledge to lead me through the maze of Kansas political trickery. :)
Kansas political trickery… Nicely put.
Ya know, Trego WaKeeney, if you hover over your nic, people can see your email addy. No point in hiding behind nics.
Heh Kansas, Linda, Wink, et al thank you. It’s been a long time since anyone listened to me about water or anything else for that matter!
For sure ethanol isn’t the answer. Better battery technology, as well as making them economically practical, is needed. There should also be a slam-dunk program to make the production of hydrogen both more practical and cheaper.
As Ksfarmgrrl stated, windmill farms are kinda unattractive, but I think they need to be built, and quickly. The energy grid in this country is suspect, and needs major input to carry the energy needs, especially if electric cars become more popular and efficient.
But the key component in all of this is water. Wasting water for the production of the energy inefficient ethanol is just plain suicidal and stupid. Grow FOOD for Christs sake. And do it efficiently.
As I stated on another thread, Dad once put one of those water-heating solar systems on the roof. The water circulated through radiator like black tubes, on the roof, then went down to the basement, for storage, prior to going into the hot water heater.
After the tax breaks, he thought he did better than break even, after a few years.
I would not mind seeing more tax breaks for things like that.
It was kinda ugly, though.
KFG
On the subject of water, you are not all “wet”. :)
Cafe standards up, safety down. We’ll all be driving around in sardine cans.
Cafe standards up, safety down. We’ll all be driving around in sardine cans.
Posted by: Heckler | December 16, 2007 at 07:09 PM
With really large batteries! (charging cells)
Sorry, ladies and gentlemen of the WE Blog: Above, I misspelled the Ogallala aquifer as Ogalalla aquifer. THE CORRECT SPELLING IS OGALLALA with the pair of “L’s” preceeding the single “L.”
The Ogallala aquifer took its name from the town of Ogallala, Nebraska, located in the corner of the “elbow” in western Nebraska.
So the town was named before the aquifer … don’t know where the name originally came from, probably from a band of plains Indians.
In any case, unfortunately the Ogallala aquifer is disappearing like the Ogallala Indians.
Sorry, ladies and gentlemen of the WE Blog: Above, I misspelled the Ogallala aquifer as Ogalalla aquifer. THE CORRECT SPELLING IS OGALLALA with the pair of “L’s” preceeding the single “L.”
The Ogallala aquifer took its name from the town of Ogallala, Nebraska, located in the corner of the “elbow” in western Nebraska.
So the town was named before the aquifer … don’t know where the name originally came from, probably from a band of plains Indians.
In any case, unfortunately the Ogallala aquifer is disappearing like the Ogallala Indians.
JWinkKansas has a claim to the name, as well:
http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/trego/ogallah.html
“Cafe standards up, safety down. We’ll all be driving around in sardine cans.”
Posted by: Heckler | December 16, 2007 at 07:09 PM
FALSE!
In the 1977-85 car mpg improvements, 96% of the efficiency gain was from smarter design, and only 4% was from smaller size.
And safety is achieved by proper design, not size and/or weight. There are some mid-size sedans that are safer than some big SUV’s, which are prone to roll-overs and roof collapsing.
We have the technology to get up to FOUR times better mpg than the standard car today, with equal or better safety.
GWB will vetoe anything that threatens to reduce or oil dependence; he’s all talk. Why do you think Humvees got the tax credit? Far as I know, still do.
I believe it is L.A. that is subsidizing up to half the cost of solar panels for residences. REad that the homeowner would recover their investment in about 10 yrs. if not sooner.
Amazing! I bought a car 20 years ago that got over 50 mpg. It was a chevy sprint. We can’t even buy something with that kind of mileage today. Ethanol production is a joke. It will ruin our water & air too. Why are our leaders so stupid? It’s all about money. They are bought & paid for by those who will make a profit. What a sad situation.
Legislating fuel economy standards is a good way to look like you’re serious, without actually doing anything. If Congress were serious about cutting our oil dependence, they’d raise gasoline taxes, while (hopefully) lowering other taxes so as to remain revenue-neutral. This would encourage people to _drive_ less, which is ultimately the only way to cut our oil consumption.
This conversation isn’t about wind power, but I can’t resist observing that there is a proven, effective technology for storing wind power: pumped-storage hydroelectric.
Heard on the BBC last night that there is anticipated huge surge in food prices. Supposedly there are a number of demand pressures creating this change: more of the world’s population is wanting American style food, the argi-fuel demands, and global warming. We can’t do without food, so we will all be paying. Hot Dog!
Ethanol from corn uses more energy than it produces; it’s a nonsolution if there ever was one. In Brazil, ethanol makes sense because it’s from sugar cane, which is much more efficient. Here it’s a political payoff.
So we’re going to be feeding more of our food to cars instead of people, and that’s a great step forward?
Are these the same type standards that were passed in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s that were ignored, watered down, and faked. We were all told that we couldn’t get big gas milage out of cars, now honda and others are doing it. The recent surge in gas prices has proven several points. First, we can get higher gas milage out of the average automobile. We could probably get more, but they’re probably holding that back. Second, oil prices have been controlled. How your say, well we’ve been told that oil (with inflation) should be around 90 dollars a barrel. Well, how come it didn’t. How was it being held down, and why. Third, if gas prices followed oil prices, then how come gas prices are still basically in the same range today at 90 dollars a barrel than when they were at 60 and 70 dollars a barrel. Too many disconnects. The truth is out there. Of course most of you can’t handle the truth. Merry Christmas.