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April
1, 2005
Energy
Bill Seeks Cleaner Solutions By
Congressman Joe Pitts I was intrigued to read a story recently
in the Daily Local News about a Using a grant from the southeastern It works like this.
They installed a solar photovoltaic system – basically a network
of solar panels – that collects the energy emitted from the sun in the
form of light. That energy is
stored. When the energy is
used up – gauges throughout the house show how much solar power is left
– the home switches over to the PECO power grid that the rest of us rely
on for power. It doesn’t completely remove the need
for traditional sources of power – oil, coal, water, nuclear, etc. –
but it is a step in that direction. At
the very least, it offers one more alternative for families like the That’s why solar power will be among
the issues discussed this week when the House Energy and Commerce
Committee meets to debate and vote on a national energy plan.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 authorizes $300 million for solar
programs, starting with a goal of installing 20,000 solar roof-top systems
in federal buildings. The
legislation will also invest billions in other forms of renewable energy
sources, such as hydropower. But it doesn’t stop there.
The popularity of “hybrid cars,” like the Toyota Prius and Ford
Escape, has inspired further government investment in alternative-fuel
vehicles. For instance, our
plan spends $2 billion over five years on research to make hydrogen fuel
cell cars competitive in the marketplace by 2020.
It allocates $200 million for the Clean Cities program that will
offer provide assistance to state and local governments to acquire
alternative-fuel vehicles. The
Clean School Bus program is the first of its kind to provide $100 million
to retrofit existing diesel buses with new pollution control technology
and a second initiative on school buses provides $200 million in grants
for the replacement of older school buses with clean alternative-fuel
vehicles. The Energy Policy Act also includes a
significant investment in clean coal technology – a component of the
energy plans presented by both Presidential candidates last year.
The legislation provides a $1.8 billion for the Clean Coal Power
Initiative, which will provide funding to those projects that can
demonstrate advanced coal-based power generating technologies that achieve
significant reductions in emissions. Much of the debate over the next few
weeks about the energy bill will focus on oil, its cost, and its source.
This is important because our economy relies on a steady stream of
oil to run. A sudden and
severe disruption in supply or government action that leads to
significantly higher prices would cause economic hardship from top to
bottom. There’s no way
around it. The government must walk softly,
therefore, when shifting focus from oil to other sources of energy.
We can only do that through a proper mix of incentives to encourage
creation of new technology, grant programs like the one that assisted the During the course of debate on this bill
there will be accusations hurled by both sides, perhaps even in response
to this column. Some will
claim that supporters of the bill want to give big oil companies a hand
out. Others will claim that
opponents want to halt economic progress in the name of an extremist
environmentalist agenda. When we look past these accusations, the
facts remain that government must chart a course that keeps oil flowing
into our economy without increasing its cost and encourage the development
of technologies which reduce our demand for the oil that flows into our
economy. Congress has been unable to agree on the
terms of a national energy plan over the last four years.
With this new effort to find a solution, I hope that we will be
able to put in place our nation’s first comprehensive national energy
policy. #
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