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House energy bill favors rail
By Avery Vise
Shortly before adjourning for the rest of August, the U.S. House of Representatives passed energy-related legislation (H.R. 3221) by a vote of 241 to 172 on Saturday, Aug. 4, setting up a possible negotiation with senators on a final energy bill.
H.R. 3221, known as the New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act, includes several measures of direct interest to the trucking industry. For example, the bill takes several steps related to biodiesel, including a rulemaking to establish a biodiesel standard unless the American Society for Testing and Materials has adopted a standard for diesel fuel containing 20 percent biodiesel within a year.
The House bill also includes a revolving loan program for qualified electric transportation projects, including truck-stop electrification, electric truck refrigeration units, battery-powered auxiliary power units for trucks and others.
For the trucking industry, the most troublesome piece of H.R. 3221 might be a new Center for Climate Change and Environment that would be established within the Department of Transportation. The purpose of the center would be to lead DOT-wide research, strategies and actions that are within DOT’s authority to reduce transportation-related energy use and mitigate the effects of climate change.
Part of the center’s mandate is to examine fuel efficiency savings and clean air impacts of major transportation projects and to identify low-cost solutions to reduce congestion and transportation-related energy use and mitigate the effects of climate change. But the center also would be tasked with studying ways “to alleviate such problems as railroad pricing that may force freight off the more fuel efficient railroads and onto less fuel efficient trucks.”
H.R. 3221 supplements an energy bill (H.R. 6) that the House passed early this year in during its so-called “First 100 Hours” legislative frenzy. The U.S. Senate passed its own version of H.R. 6 in June that would that would require a rulemaking on fuel economy improvements in medium- and heavy-duty trucks and a loan program to encourage truck stop electrification. Presumably, House and Senate negotiators will consider all the energy-related legislation passed by both houses.
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