House Passes Catastrophic Energy Bill

I signed and sent my singature against this bill. Hoping the Senate stops it from going anywhere.....

Basics
Some of the key provisions in the bill, which spans about 1,200 pages, are:

OIL/GAS
Doubling production of ethanol blended into gasoline to 5 billion gallons (19 billion liters) by 2012;

Sharing oil royalty payments to give Louisiana and other coastal states some $1 billion for restoration projects;

Cutting royalty payments for small oil or gas wells when prices fall below a set threshold;

Offering $18 billion in loan guarantees to build a natural gas pipeline from Alaska to the Midwest;

Offering $1 billion to help MTBE makers convert to other lines of business before the chemical is banned in 2015.

Speeding up tax depreciation for new natural gas pipelines from 20 years to 15 years.

Ordering the Interior Department to approve or deny within 30 days each application to drill on federal land.

ELECTRICITY

Requiring nationwide electric reliability standards to prevent a repeat of the August blackout.

Barring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from issuing nationwide rules for electricity markets until 2007;

Granting $165 million in tax breaks for new nuclear power plants;

Funding for a $1 billion nuclear power reactor that will use advanced technology.