ACEEE PRESS BRIEF
HOUSE ENERGY BILL TAKES SMALL STEPS FOR
ENERGY EFFICIENCY
For further information, contact: Steve
Nadel at 202-429-8873
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 5, 2003
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Testimony before the House Energy and
Commerce Committee today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient
Economy (ACEEE) said that the energy bill recently introduced in
the House contains important energy efficiency provisions, but leaves
out much larger measures that are crucial to an effective energy
policy.
"As we stand poised for war in Iraq, it is astonishing that an
American energy bill would do so little to save oil," said ACEEE
Executive Director Steven Nadel. "We applaud the Energy and Commerce
Committee for retaining the appliance efficiency standards and other
energy efficiency features from last year's conference, but the
larger issues of vehicle fuel economy and efficiency in the electricity
sector are not seriously addressed."
ACEEE supports the energy efficiency provisions in the bill, including:
- Title
I on Energy Conservation — especially the sections on energy
conservation standards for additional consumer and commercial
products and on federal leadership in energy conservation;
- Title
VI on DOE Programs and the sections of Title V dealing with
hydrogen vehicles and fuel; and
- Title
X on Automobile Efficiency, primarily because it improves
on the 2001 legislation by not extending the dual-fuel credit
for cars (thereby saving on the order of 55 million barrels of
oil annually).
These provisions would produce modest overall impacts on U.S.
energy use. ACEEE estimates that the provisions will reduce U.S.
energy use by about 2% in 2020, and will prevent the need for 130
300-Megawatt power plants. However, ACEEE's and others' analyses
have shown that more aggressive efficiency policies could achieve
savings on the order of 25% reduction in U.S. energy use in 2020.
Therefore, much more needs to be done to improve U.S. energy efficiency.
Nadel's testimony recommended:
- Clarifying DOE's authority for residential furnace efficiency
standards, and adding other new efficiency standards based on negotiations
with industry;
- Setting
a fuel-savings goal of one million barrels per day of oil savings
by 2010 for future passenger vehicle fuel-economy rules (an increase
of about 5 miles per gallon from current levels, displacing more
oil than we import from Iraq);
- Encouraging
combined heat and power and other distributed generation systems
by adding provisions to Title VII that would provide an orderly
transition from the current PURPA structure to one in which distributed
generators participate in a fair marketplace that values their
benefits and prices services in a truly competitive manner; and
- Including
an Energy Efficiency Performance Standard for electricity suppliers,
modeled after a program now operating in Texas.
These additional provisions would multiply energy savings under
the bill more than five times; at this level, the bill would realize
almost half the potential savings defined by leading researchers.
Failure to take these steps now will increase our oil dependency
and energy prices, slow the economic recovery, worsen our air quality,
and accelerate global warming. Timid energy efficiency policies
will only delay the inevitable reckoning Congress will have to make
with our growing energy problems.
The complete testimony can be downloaded from http://aceee.org/tstimony/0303compnep.pdf.
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About ACEEE:The American Council
for an Energy-Efficient Economy is a non-profit organization dedicated
to advancing energy efficiency as a means of promoting both economic
prosperity and environmental protection.
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