Lawmakers

The U.S Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday it plans to urge Republican lawmakers and the Bush White House to immediately tackle “unfinished business,” such as comprehensive energy legislation, in the new session before taking on hot-button issues like reform of the Social Security system.

Senate and House lawmakers earlier this week kicked off negotiations on a broad corporate tax cut bill that in the end could include energy tax breaks and credits of up to $17-$18 billion.

House lawmakers last Tuesday voted out the omnibus Republican-crafted energy bill by a wide margin for the second time in nearly seven months, sending it to the Senate in hopes of jump-starting action on the stalled bill in that chamber.

House lawmakers on Tuesday voted out the omnibus Republican-crafted energy bill by a wide margin for the second time in nearly seven months, sending it to the Senate in hopes of jump-starting action on the stalled bill in that chamber.

Pressure is rising on Capitol Hill for lawmakers to take action on stalled comprehensive energy legislation, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said on Wednesday. He also gave a thumbs down to the idea of breaking pieces of the energy bill off and trying to move them as separate measures.

House lawmakers voted out the omnibus Republican-crafted energy bill by a wide margin Tuesday, sending it to the Senate to consider and moving it one step closer to becoming law. If the measure clears the Senate this week, as top Republicans expect, it will be the first major overhaul of the national energy policy in a decade.

An alleged agreement struck between the White House and Southeastern federal lawmakers that would delay the formation of regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and FERC’s standard market design (SMD) proposal could destroy efforts to bring the country’s power grid up to snuff, as well as undercut the ability of regions to address capacity shortages, the president of the Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) warned Vice President Dick Cheney last week.

With a growing interest in changing the state’s energy landscape, California lawmakers this week will examine three major proposals, one that would create a new regulatory body out of parts of three existing agencies, another that would eliminate the last vestiges of the state’s 1996 electric restructuring law and third dealing with gas price indices. Hearings are set in the Assembly and Senate for Wednesday and Thursday for the respective bills.

After noting that state regulators are in office to carry out the will of state lawmakers, Susan Kennedy was quickly cleared by the Senate Rules Committee last week for confirmation as the new commissioner at the California Public Utilities Commission.