Hill Heat

With a vote on CAFE legislation in the House expected to come next week, the Pew Campaign for Fuel Efficiency today released new bipartisan polling in Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida and Michigan that pulled from more than 30 congressional districts. The surveys found overwhelming voter support for the U.S. House of Representatives to pass CAFE legislation at least as strong as those passed by the U.S. Senate in June. One particular district surveyed was John Dingell’s, Michigan-15.

The polls compared the elements of the Markey-Platts bill (HR 1506) with those of the industry-supported Hill-Terry bill (HR 2927), and found overwhelming, across-the-board support for Markey-Platts across all demographic groups (partisanship, income, type of car, age, etc.). Voters just don’t buy the industry arguments against CAFE standards, believing that cars will continue to be safe and affordable and that the American auto industry and auto workers will be better off as they will be forced to innovate.

As Bill McInturff, the GOP pollster said in the briefing, “There’s really strong Republican support for higher standards, do it quicker, make it binding.” Voters see this as an economic, environmental, national security issue, and would feel better about Congress and their own representative if strong legislation is passed.

Voters in Dingell’s district look like the voters elsewhere.

The pollsters deliberately avoided global warming because they see it as a partisan issue.

The Washington Post reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is in talks with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (Mich.) on how to introduce the CAFE standards legislation that passed the Senate last month. Also of interest from the article, discussing the overall House energy legislation:

Lobbyists are still working to alter key parts of the legislation as it moves to the House floor and later to conference committee with the Senate. The American Petroleum Institute has been lobbying to limit the impact of tax measures that would effectively boost oil companies’ corporate income tax rate and increase royalty payments. Coal and nuclear advocates are pushing for additional loan guarantees and tax breaks. Beef and poultry producers that use corn feed hope to dilute incentives for corn-based ethanol.

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?