Bookerdog
Veteran Member
In this post, the senate kill of CAFE was lamented, but hope for oil burners still lingers.
I did some searching through the arcane Congressional record searches and found some interesting information that wasn't caught by the Yahoo story. Yes it is true the Levin/Bond amendment cut the Kerry CAFE standards off at the knees by nixing the proposed MPG standards. HOWEVER, for us here, Levin/Bond actually inserted language proposing study of diesel fuel meeting Tier II standards.
Basically, it boils down to this, Levin/Bond struck sections 801 - 811 of Kerry's amendment and replaced it with it's own. Not surprising some sections of the Kerry Amendment have been struck down, it has over 1800 sections, and is far longer and more encompasing that the bill it amends.
The interesting part for us is the approved Levin/Bond section 808:
Also, they left alone Kerry's section 814 which calls for a Green School Bus Pilot program which calls specifically for the use of Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (less than 15ppm) in School Buses. That would seem to indicate that they at least have an understanding of the benefits of ULSD, and perhaps might spur someone to produce it to supply this program. However, Kerry never did mention where exactly this ULSD was supposed to come from in his original amendment.
Also of interest to the current and hopeful Bean Burners is that there are a couple of sections regarding Biodiesel that haven't been touched in Kerry's original bill.
Section 817: Changes existing law and will make Biodiesel eligible for alternative fuel tax credits for large truck fleet operators. Tax incentive for truckers to burn the bean.
Section 818: Establishes standards for the production of required amounts of renewable fuels, including Biodiesel. I have no idea where these amounts rate in terms of the amount of biodiesel currently produced, but it is something.
So, to those of you who automatically tie CAFE to cleaner diesel proposals, be careful. They're usually mentioned in the same areas, but they are not one in the same. Though, considering how hard this info was to compile, I can understand how you'd believe failure of one is failure of all.
By the way, while wading through all this I discovered the section of the UCC that we all really want changed.
Thoughts?
[ April 03, 2002, 09:54: Message edited by: Bookerdog ]
I did some searching through the arcane Congressional record searches and found some interesting information that wasn't caught by the Yahoo story. Yes it is true the Levin/Bond amendment cut the Kerry CAFE standards off at the knees by nixing the proposed MPG standards. HOWEVER, for us here, Levin/Bond actually inserted language proposing study of diesel fuel meeting Tier II standards.
Basically, it boils down to this, Levin/Bond struck sections 801 - 811 of Kerry's amendment and replaced it with it's own. Not surprising some sections of the Kerry Amendment have been struck down, it has over 1800 sections, and is far longer and more encompasing that the bill it amends.
The interesting part for us is the approved Levin/Bond section 808:
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">It ain't exactly an ULSD proposal, but the language is actually stronger than anything in Kerry's bill regarding clean diesel, considering that it doesn't mention anything about the modification of overall sulfur standards.
Also, they left alone Kerry's section 814 which calls for a Green School Bus Pilot program which calls specifically for the use of Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (less than 15ppm) in School Buses. That would seem to indicate that they at least have an understanding of the benefits of ULSD, and perhaps might spur someone to produce it to supply this program. However, Kerry never did mention where exactly this ULSD was supposed to come from in his original amendment.
Also of interest to the current and hopeful Bean Burners is that there are a couple of sections regarding Biodiesel that haven't been touched in Kerry's original bill.
Section 817: Changes existing law and will make Biodiesel eligible for alternative fuel tax credits for large truck fleet operators. Tax incentive for truckers to burn the bean.
Section 818: Establishes standards for the production of required amounts of renewable fuels, including Biodiesel. I have no idea where these amounts rate in terms of the amount of biodiesel currently produced, but it is something.
So, to those of you who automatically tie CAFE to cleaner diesel proposals, be careful. They're usually mentioned in the same areas, but they are not one in the same. Though, considering how hard this info was to compile, I can understand how you'd believe failure of one is failure of all.
By the way, while wading through all this I discovered the section of the UCC that we all really want changed.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This would be better known in Congress speak as (42 U.S.C. 7545(i)(1))
Thoughts?
[ April 03, 2002, 09:54: Message edited by: Bookerdog ]
