With House and Senate conferees set to meet July 19 to draft final language on energy efficiency, nuclear energy and five other titles in the comprehensive Energy Policy Act of 2005, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman has laid out the administration's views of provisions in the bill in a letter to Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the conference committee. Seven governors, meanwhile, are pressing Bush for policies aimed at energy independence.

The Bush administration objects to the costs of guaranteed loan programs authorized in both the House and Senate bills for advanced energy technology research and development; the renewables standard in the Senate energy bill; and the Senate resolution calling for eventual establishment of a mandatory program to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

In a July 15 letter to Barton, Bodman said the administration "opposes the Senate bill provision that would set a national renewable portfolio standard on power generation and believes these standards are best left to the states." Even with limits on the cost of credits under the proposed program, Bodman argues that a national renewable portfolio standard "would force higher electricity costs on consumers, especially in areas where these renewable resources are less abundant and harder to cultivate or distribute."

Bodman urged the conference committee instead to support Bush's proposal to extend and expand the renewable energy production tax credit. The president proposed $6.7 billion in spending over 10 years on energy tax incentives for alternative and renewable fuels, conservation, energy efficiency and emissions-free energy, Bodman noted. "The administration is concerned that the House and Senate bills contain tax provisions whose total cost significantly exceeds [these] proposals and provide unnecessary subsidies."

Bodman said the administration is adamantly opposed to the "Sense of the Senate" provision on reducing carbon dioxide missions to tackle global warming, even though it is nonbinding. The resolution calls for the creation of a program of mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the future, while the Bush administration continues to advocate a voluntary approach to climate change.

"We believe that such a mandatory program is unnecessary in light of the continued success of the president's climate change strategy," Bodman said, adding that Bush's strategy "is focused on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of the U.S. economy by 18% by 2012 through a broad range of domestic and international actions."

Encouraging a more activist approach to America's dependence on imports of foreign oil, seven Democratic governors are urging Bush to lead "a bold national project to achieve environmentally and economically sustainable" energy independence within a decade.

In addition to addressing global warming and the defense against terrorism, the governors wrote, a national effort at sustainable energy independence "would produce millions of good-paying jobs and trillions of dollars in new private income and domestic investment."

While applauding the president's effort last October to open the market for bio-diesel school buses and public transportation, the governors asked for his leadership on several other energy fronts. They asked Bush to ramp up efforts already underway in many states by increasing federal loan guarantees "for state and municipal bonds to capitalize on diverse energy and income generating projects, including building retrofits, constructing renewable energy generation and improving the efficiency of existing energy technology."

The governors also are seeking federal support for developing and deploying technologies aimed at "capturing and sequestering the carbon from coal-fired power plants, rewiring our electrical grid, and utilizing wasted energy resources through cogeneration and other technology."

In addition, the seven governors support removing regulatory barriers and improving incentives to "support the development of small-scale distributed clean energy generation through net metering, thereby enhancing the security and reliability of the electrical grid, creating a level playing field in the market for alternative energy, and improving real time information flow and consumer choice."

Governors signing the letter were Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, Brian Schweitzer of Montana, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, Christine Gregoire of Washington and Jim Doyle of Wisconsin.