Energy Bill Signed
It's Getting Hot in Herre

President Bush took a break from the hard work of all that brush removal at his ranch in Crawford, TX to fly to New Mexico to sign the House and Senate-ratified Energy Bill into law and enjoy a great photo op, showing his commitment to renewable energy:

Before his speech, Bush emphasized the environmentally friendly aspects of the legislation by touring Sandia National Laboratory's National Solar Thermal Test Facility. Wearing stylish sunglasses in the bright sunshine, he and Republican Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico were led through an array of giant solar dishes with computer controlled mirrors that reflect and concentrate sunlight.

Grist Magazin's Muckraker has a few details on the help the President received in getting to this signing event from an unlikely group of allies: Senate Democrats:

Four years, two failed conference attempts, and one filibuster after the Republican leadership first introduced the Bush-backed energy bill into Congress, the controversial legislation is being signed into law today by the president, yielding a major victory for the White House -- and exposing Democrats' continued inability to rally around a unified vision and stay on message. When House and Senate negotiators met to hammer out a compromise version of the bill in conference committee last month, it was predictably stripped of nearly all its environmentally ambitious provisions, including one requiring utilities to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. What's left is a dizzying $14.5 billion in energy-industry subsidies, only about 20 percent of which will go to renewable-energy development. [...] Senate Energy Committee ranking member Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) beamed that the post-conference bill has "many more bright spots than flaws and deserves passage by the Senate and signature by the president." Harder for progressives and enviros to swallow was the support it got from Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who expressed disappointment that the bill wasn't more bold but still went so far as to call the legislation "a first step toward decreasing America's dependence on foreign oil." It could more credibly be described as yet another step toward subsidizing Illinois corn farmers for ethanol production that will be of dubious environmental benefit. Bingaman and Obama were far from alone: Over half of the Democratic caucus in the Senate voted for the bill. Most of these yea votes came from senators whose states stood to benefit markedly from the subsidies, while most of the nay votes were cast by senators from non-energy-producing states. Critics argue that this split among Dems wasn't just a practical failure that gave way to shoddy energy policy; it was also a symbolic failure for the Democratic Party at large. [...] In May, Reid released a statement challenging the White House to produce a forward-looking energy policy. "Democrats remain fully committed to working to pass an energy bill that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil," he stated, and went on to outline the eight priorities that Dems would stand by: a renewable-electricity portfolio standard, a reduction of oil consumption by at least 1.75 million barrels of oil per day by 2015, electricity reliability standards, "strong energy-efficiency standards" for buildings and appliances, a "significant increase in homegrown biofuels," a "comprehensive" climate-change provision, production tax credits for geothermal, solar, wind, and biomass, and complete protection of existing environmental laws and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. [...] But even though Reid cast a nay vote, his objection to the legislation was voiced with a barely audible whimper. He issued a terse statement that read, in part, "House Republicans working on the final version of the bill rejected the provisions that would have led us toward energy independence, and I will not support this version of the bill." According to insiders, Reid made little to no effort to sway the Democratic caucus, presumably because he knew a lot of Democrats believed they would benefit from the bill's passage and he assumed it would be futile to try and convince them otherwise.

Crap. Mrs. F and I just placed an "Obama for President" sticker on the back of my (our) hooptie (aka, that dashing white '91 Honda Civic, Gunter Grass). I still hold out hopes for the junior Senator, but this is an unfortunate vote based on bringing in the bacon for Illinois, home of crops ready for ethanol use. Here's what Senator Obama had to say in a press release from his Senate web site:

"This bill, while far from a solution, is a first step toward decreasing America's dependence on foreign oil," said Obama. "It requires that 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol be mixed with gasoline by 2012. That's 7.5 billion gallons of fuel that will be grown in the corn fields of Illinois, and not imported from the deserts of the Middle East. The bill will also help triple the number of E85 ethanol fueling stations in the next year by providing a tax credit for their construction. This will help the millions of people who already drive flexible-fuel vehicles to fill their tanks with fuel made from 85 percent ethanol that is 50 cents cheaper than regular gasoline." "I am also pleased that the bill includes funding I requested for research into combination plug-in hybrid and flexible fuel vehicles that could travel up to 500 miles per gallon of gasoline, as well as more investment into clean-coal technology." [...] "We could have done more today, and we should do more in the future. We must accept and embrace the challenge of finding a solution to our dependence on foreign oil as one of the most pressing problems of our time. It won't be easy and it won't be without sacrifice, but we owe it to ourselves and to our children so that we can bring down gas prices, protect our environment, and strengthen our national security. This should be one of our top priorities in America." "So, I vote for this bill reluctantly today, disappointed that we have missed our opportunity to do something bolder that would have put us on the path to energy independence. This bill should be the first step, not the last, in our journey towards energy independence."

He's got the gift for writing and speaking some great rhetoric. But in regards to the energy bill, it seems fairly heartbreakingly hollow. I admit I'm a bit new to the ethanol debate and I'm really just starting to do my research into biodiesel (something Mrs. F and I are very interested in for a future car purchase), but here's some info from a recent Slate article about the energy trade-offs that production of biofuels requires:

The stickiest question about ethanol is this: Does making alcohol from grain or plant waste really create any new energy? The answer, of course, depends upon whom you ask. The ethanol lobby claims there's a 30 percent net gain in BTUs from ethanol made from corn. Other boosters, including Woolsey, claim there are huge energy gains (as much as 700 percent) to be had by making ethanol from grass. But the ethanol critics have shown that the industry calculations are bogus. David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains. The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production—from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant—and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gas—from drilling the well, to transportation, through refining—requires around 22,000 BTUs. In addition to their findings on corn, they determined that making ethanol from switch grass requires 50 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol yields, wood biomass 57 percent more, and sunflowers 118 percent more. The best yield comes from soybeans, but they, too, are a net loser, requiring 27 percent more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced. In other words, more ethanol production will increase America's total energy consumption, not decrease it.