ENERGY POLICY—U.S. PIRG Legislative Director Anna Aurilio discusses energy policy on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on August 8, just hours before President Bush signed his energy plan into law.

This summer, the price of oil passed the $70-per-barrel mark for the first time ever. Dependence on foreign oil grew, as did the body of evidence linking global warming to the consumption of oil in transportation and industry.

If ever there was a time for our leaders to embrace a bold, new energy policy, one that begins organizing an orderly transition to an economy powered by cleaner, more sustainable sources of energy, this was it. But they didn’t—at least not in Washington.

As U.S. PIRG members already know, despite our best efforts, on July 29 Congress passed an energy bill that offers little to consumers and the environment, while handing over billions to the oil and nuclear industries.

Our members undoubtedly have heard about many of the law’s worst provisions, including $25 billion in subsidies for major energy companies—including ExxonMobil, which, on the same day the House approved the energy bill, posted a record second quarter profit of nearly $8 billion.

The final details of the bill were supposedly hammered out in a late-night meeting that adjourned at 3 AM on Tuesday morning July 25. While U.S. PIRG’s Anna Aurilio and Gene Karpinski were there right up to the bitter end, it wasn’t until eight hours later that an attentive Hill staffer contacted Anna about an additional $1.5 billion subsidy, quietly slipped into the bill at the last minute—after the conference meeting had ended, for a consortium of oil and gas companies— led by Halliburton and based in the Texas district of Majority Leader Tom Delay.

Aurilio fought hard to remove this and other of the bill’s most harmful provisions. Among the anti-environment steps kept out of the final law were a green light for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, weakening clean air protections, and a liability shield for oil companies responsible for MBTE contamination of drinking water supplies in every state in the nation.

Unfortunately, congressional leaders also kept two U.S. PIRG-backed, Senate-approved provisions out of the final law—a 10 percent goal for clean energy by 2020 and a modest goal of reducing oil dependence by 1 million barrels a day. “Washington’s failure to make the right choices on this issue only underscores the importance of what’s going on in the states,” said Aurilio. Consider:

• This summer, the California Senate approved the Million Solar Roofs Initiative, under which new solar panels would be installed on 1 million homes and businesses by 2017. Environment California, the new home for CALPIRG’s environmental work, is the chief proponent.

• Last November, Colorado voters approved the nation’s first renewable energy ballot initiative. The plan, spearheaded by Environment Colorado, sets a clean energy goal of 10 percent by 2015.

• In March, New Jersey adopted a new law that will improve energy-efficiency standards for common household and commercial appliances like washing machines and air conditioners, reducing energy use by 300 megawatts, enough energy to power the whole city of Newark, NJ. NJPIRG advocated the law’s passage.

All told, PIRGs have won laws requiring clean energy in nine states, energy efficiency standards in eight states, and clean car laws in eight states. At least 16 states are considering similar steps. “The national energy bill is a major setback, no doubt,” said Aurilio. “But the larger debate is far from over.”