EDITORIAL
House energy bill: an embarrassment

One measure of how badly the U.S. House has failed the nation's energy interests: While our lawmakers have been busy crafting loopholes to make American cars less gas-efficient than they are now, the Chinese are about to impose fuel-economy standards on new cars and SUVs that will be significantly stronger than ours.

The fact that this is more about reducing dependency on oil than global warming or the environment does not diminish the lesson.

Hawai'i Rep. Ed Case blasted the energy bill, calling it "a disgrace epitomizing everything that's wrong with our national political process today." He joined Rep. Neil Abercrombie on the losing side of the 246-180 vote.

Aside from refraining from approval of oil drilling in the Alaska wilderness — one of the few things this bill got right — this is a throwback bill that promotes 20th-century coal, gas, oil and nuclear industry programs at the expense of 21st-century conservation and renewable energy.

One of the bill's biggest boondoggles supports production of ethanol from corn as a gasoline additive. It arguably takes more energy to produce the additive than it saves in fuel efficiency.

House Republicans crafted the bill behind closed doors, giving their Democratic colleagues and the public only 48 hours to read its 1,700 pages before it came to a vote. Had they had time to see and understand this bill, taxpayers would have revolted.

The bill, which critics say will cost more than $100 billion, now goes to the Senate, where it may encounter enough resistance to derail it, including from some disgruntled eastern Republicans. We urge Sens. Akaka and Inouye to help defeat this turkey.