Crossposted at Daily Kos.
Last week I diaried on the key battles in the Senate energy bill, the Renewable Fuels, Consumer Protection, and Energy Efficiency Act of 2007 (SA 1502):
- No on Coal-to-Liquid
- No on restricting EPA or state regulation of motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases
- No on diluting definition of biofuels
- No on changing “renewable” to “alternative” in legislation
- No on offshore drilling
- Yes on strong CAFE standards (no on weakening further)
- Yes on price-gouging regulation (the right-wingers are fighting this hard)
- Yes on national Renewable Portfolio Standard of 15% by 2015, 20% by 2020 (if we’re lucky, we’ll get legislation for 15% by 2020)
- Yes on incentives for distributed generation (aka cogeneration, net metering, electranet) at the commercial and residential level
- Yes on support for energy efficiency, especially
- Yes on funding of The Weatherization Assistance Program
- Yes on funding renewable energy by removing some oil subsidies
So what were the results?
Here are the issues:
| ISSUE | RESULT |
| No on Coal-to-Liquid |  (Tester amdt. S.AMDT.1614
rejected 33-61, Bunning amdt. S.AMDT
1628 rejected 39-55) |
| No on restricting EPA or state regulation of motor vehicle emissions of greenhouse gases | |
| No on diluting definition of biofuels |  (Kyl amdt. S.AMDT.1800
rejected 45-49) |
| No on changing “renewable” to “alternative” in legislation | |
| No on offshore drilling | |
| Yes on strong CAFE standards (no on weakening further) | (Pryor-Bond-Levin-Stabenow amdt. S.AMDT.
1711 not considered) |
| Yes on price-gouging regulation (the right-wingers are fighting this hard) | (Title
VI of S.AMDT.1502) |
| Yes on national Renewable Portfolio Standard of 15% by 2015, 20% by 2020 | (Bingaman amdt. S.AMDT.1537
withdrawn under filibuster threat) |
| Yes on incentives for distributed generation (aka cogeneration, net metering, electranet) at the commercial and residential level | (issue held for next round of energy
legislation) |
| Yes on major increase in funding of The Weatherization Assistance Program (which Bush is trying to slash) | (Title
II, Subtitle F of S.AMDT.1502) |
| Yes on funding renewable energy by removing some subsidies to oil industry | (Baucus amdt. S.AMDT.1704
filibustered 57-36) |
The caveats to the table above include:
- while the CAFE standards are being increased, they are certainly not aggressive increases. Still, a lot better than the zero action the Bush administration and auto industry wanted.
- the increase to the Weatherization Assistance program is about 7%, instead of the 25% increase which would have had optimal results. Still, a lot better than the zeroing out that Bush wanted.