When the Democrats took office in this Congressional session, there was a lot of attention paid to the “first 100 hour” campaign.

It turns out that the final bill taken up by the House during that period was House Resolution 6, also known as the CLEAN Energy Act of 2007. (In case you were wondering, “CLEAN” stands for “Creating Long-Term Energy Alternatives for the Nation”. What I want to know is whose job is it to come up with these names that spell cute acronyms?!?)

The act passed the House 264 - 163 and has now moved onto the Senate for its consideration. Until the Senate takes it up, it is just a bill on Capitol Hill. (You knew I couldn’t get through this post without referencing that song.)

I decided to take a look at the bill to see what it was all about.

Surprisingly, the bill was relatively short and understandable. I’m not sure what that was all about.

While the bill’s title is about “clean energy”, the reality is that this is mostly just about changing tax law and revoking breaks given to energy companies.

There is some other minutia in here about renegotiating leases that had an error in them, but the primary focus of the bill is to eliminate several tax breaks previously given to the oil and gas companies.

All of the money raised by repealing these tax breaks would then be put into a separate fund called the “Strategic Energy Efficiency and Renewables Reserve” that would be used for one of the following purposes:

1. to accelerate the use of clean domestic renewable energy resources and alternative fuels;
2. to promote the utilization of energy-efficient products and practices and conservation; and
3. to increase research, development, and deployment of clean renewable energy and efficiency technologies.

Interestingly, the bill does not specify exactly how this money would be used; instead, the bill basically sets aside this money for allocation in future bills.

Because of that, this is a somewhat boring bill from an environmental perspective; it really just lays the foundation for more interesting things to come.

According to SourceWatch, the bill faces “uncertain prospects” in the Senate.

Of course, even if it passes the Senate, it also has to get past President Bush since it does not look like it has the support to overturn a veto.

I guess the end summary here is that this is definitely something to watch, but it will only become interesting if it can pass and get signed by the president, and then we can actually move on to the really interesting topic of where to invest that money.

Other Resources:

• CBS News Article