WASHINGTON, May 14 (RIA Novosti) - A bipartisan bill to encourage energy efficiency died in the Senate on Monday when majority leader Harry Reid refused to let 5 amendments come up for a vote, including an amendment inserted by Republicans that would approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
In an energy debate hosted by Politico, Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota charged that stalling a vote on Keystone XL for over 6 years because of stringent and costly environmental regulations ties up “not hundreds of millions, but billions and billions in investments that we want to go into energy.”
Sen. Hoeven insisted that the US can influence other nations to adopt more efficient, environmentally sustainable energy investments, but only if the US is willing to make the investment into new technologies and projects, like Keystone XL. “If you encourage investment and show that it is commercially viable, then other countries will adopt it.”
Hoeven, a Republican member of the Senate Energy Committee was joined by Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who urged a vote on Keystone XL to improve energy security. He described the existing US power system as “fragile" and threatened by excessive environmental regulations.
Currently Manchin is preparing to fight additional EPA restrictions on existing power plants, which will be announced on June 2nd. According to the Senator, within the coming year, the new regulations will remove 10,000 MW of coal fired power in the mid-Atlantic’s PJM system. That region, along with the majority of the United States, experienced record cold temperatures this past winter. Manchin asked rhetorically, “If you have another Polar Vortex, how many people will lose their lives?”
