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Highlights of Senate energy bill By MarketWatch
Last Update: 7:28 PM ET Jun 28, 2005
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Listed below are the main provisions of the energy bill approved Tuesday by the U.S. Senate:
Electricity
Makes current voluntary-reliability standards mandatory for the electric-utility industry.
Repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act, easing merger restrictions on the utility industry, while giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission greater power to review proposed mergers and gives state officials access to company financial records.
Natural gas and oil
Makes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the lead agency in approving on- and offshore liquid natural-gas terminals, with its decisions subject to appeal before the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Increases opportunities to lease land to test oil-shale technologies.
Requires an inventory of oil and gas resources on the nation's outer continental shelf
Grants royalty exemptions for deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Nuclear
Authorizes the federal government to dole out an unlimited number of loans for up to 80% of the cost of projects that can avoid, reduce or capture emissions -- including nuclear, clean coal and renewable energy technologies. Industry would have to pay back these loans.
Authorizes the Energy Department to fund research aimed at extending the life of existing nuclear-power plants.
Offers a nuclear-production tax credit of up to $125 million per 1,000 megawatts, good for eight years for new nuclear-power plants built in the United States.
Provides $1.25 billion over the next decade to design and construct a nuclear reactor in Idaho.
Clean coal
Authorizes the Energy Department to spend $200 million annually over the next seven years to boost development of clean-coal technologies.
Authorizes funding for a handful of specific clean-coal projects.
Authorizes 1.8 billion in funding for basic coal research and development.
Allows the Energy secretary to make loan guarantees for projects that generate electricity from coal, biomass or petroleum coke, and for a project to produce energy from coal from the western United States.
Repeals a 160-acre limit on coal leases.
Fuel economy
Requires the Transportation Department to raise fuel-economy standards for passenger vehicles to the maximum feasible level in the next two and a half years, after officials take into account the impact any proposed increase might have on nine criteria, including vehicle safety, the national economy, unemployment and cost to the auto industry.
Renewable energy
Would require that 10% of the electricity sold by utilities to the retail market comes from clean energy resources like the sun, wind and geothermal sources.
Provides energy tax incentives for existing and new homes, commercial buildings, appliances and alternative fuel vehicles.
Extends Section 45 tax credits for the production of electricity from wind, biomass, geothermal and wave energy.
Conservation
Requires the administration to reduce U.S. oil imports by 1 million barrels per day from projected levels for 2015.
Highlights of Senate energy bill By MarketWatch
Last Update: 7:28 PM ET Jun 28, 2005
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Listed below are the main provisions of the energy bill approved Tuesday by the U.S. Senate:
Electricity
Makes current voluntary-reliability standards mandatory for the electric-utility industry.
Repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act, easing merger restrictions on the utility industry, while giving the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission greater power to review proposed mergers and gives state officials access to company financial records.
Natural gas and oil
Makes the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the lead agency in approving on- and offshore liquid natural-gas terminals, with its decisions subject to appeal before the D.C. Court of Appeals.
Increases opportunities to lease land to test oil-shale technologies.
Requires an inventory of oil and gas resources on the nation's outer continental shelf
Grants royalty exemptions for deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Nuclear
Authorizes the federal government to dole out an unlimited number of loans for up to 80% of the cost of projects that can avoid, reduce or capture emissions -- including nuclear, clean coal and renewable energy technologies. Industry would have to pay back these loans.
Authorizes the Energy Department to fund research aimed at extending the life of existing nuclear-power plants.
Offers a nuclear-production tax credit of up to $125 million per 1,000 megawatts, good for eight years for new nuclear-power plants built in the United States.
Provides $1.25 billion over the next decade to design and construct a nuclear reactor in Idaho.
Clean coal
Authorizes the Energy Department to spend $200 million annually over the next seven years to boost development of clean-coal technologies.
Authorizes funding for a handful of specific clean-coal projects.
Authorizes 1.8 billion in funding for basic coal research and development.
Allows the Energy secretary to make loan guarantees for projects that generate electricity from coal, biomass or petroleum coke, and for a project to produce energy from coal from the western United States.
Repeals a 160-acre limit on coal leases.
Fuel economy
Requires the Transportation Department to raise fuel-economy standards for passenger vehicles to the maximum feasible level in the next two and a half years, after officials take into account the impact any proposed increase might have on nine criteria, including vehicle safety, the national economy, unemployment and cost to the auto industry.
Renewable energy
Would require that 10% of the electricity sold by utilities to the retail market comes from clean energy resources like the sun, wind and geothermal sources.
Provides energy tax incentives for existing and new homes, commercial buildings, appliances and alternative fuel vehicles.
Extends Section 45 tax credits for the production of electricity from wind, biomass, geothermal and wave energy.
Conservation
Requires the administration to reduce U.S. oil imports by 1 million barrels per day from projected levels for 2015.
