Power Shortage

The House energy package is missing some key components.

IN MANY WAYS, the bills that will make up the House energy package are a lot like the version passed by the Senate last month. There's a push for investment in renewable energy. There are greater efficiency measures, with the federal government leading by example. There's a drive to test whether carbon capture and sequestration will work on a commercial scale. And a move to fund a coal-to-liquid fuel boondoggle has been thwarted -- for now. Still, the legislation is incomplete.

Like the Senate package of bills, the House effort avoids the most rational route to greater efficiency: a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system that would increase the cost of emitting greenhouse gases and then allow the private sector to find the best ways to adjust. But that's not all that's missing. While the Senate passed the first increase in corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards since 1975 (35 miles per gallon by 2020), the House punted. The cause of inaction rests with Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and 147 (and counting) sponsors may introduce an amendment to boost CAFE standards to 35 mpg by 2018, but Mr. Markey has articulated no clear strategy -- a sign of how delicate this issue is for the majority party. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should assert her leadership to ensure that higher CAFE standards make final passage.

Also making the House energy package less than optimal is the lack of a renewable energy standard. If the United States is going to ease its dependence on fossil fuels, it must institute a national benchmark for utilities to use more wind, solar, biomass or geothermal energy. Rep. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and Rep. Todd Platts (R-Pa.) plan to offer such an amendment when the bill is introduced this month. The District of Columbia and 27 states have varying renewable energy standards in place. There's no reason a federal equivalent shouldn't be established -- unless members of Congress sympathetic to Big Coal and Big Auto continue to kill efforts to implement one.

Which brings us to Mr. Dingell. He helped beat back efforts to pass a renewable energy standard and a CAFE standards increase because, he says, he wants to take them up in the fall when his committee considers global warming legislation. The fall? There's no reason to wait. Both pieces of legislation have growing support on Capitol Hill and among the American people. If Mr. Dingell is serious about taking concrete steps to help combat global warming, he won't put off to tomorrow what can be done today.