Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, along with the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for their work to alert the world about global warming.

Al Gore’s work has helped educate the world about this enormous challenge, and his commitment to environmental issues runs very deep. His book, Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, published in 1992, is certainly worth a read for a primer on global warming.

NWF is thrilled that Al Gore’s tireless efforts to tackle global warming and devotion to environmental issues are being recognized by the Nobel committee.

Read about what NWF’s staff has to say about this exciting announcement!

Below is a quick rundown on votes and issues NWF cared about on this bill:

VOTES:

• An Inhofe amendment to build more oil refineries. We opposed (but didn’t focus on). Defeated  52-43.
• A Domenici amendment to include nuclear power as a “renewable,” and procided opt-outs of a renewable energy standard. We opposed. Defeated 56-39.
• A Bunning Coal to Liquid (CTL) amendment requiring liquid coal production. We opposed. Defeated 55-39.
• Cloture vote (vote to end debate) on the energy bill, which ended up serving as the vote on the energy bill. We supported. Passed 61-32.

ISSUES:

• Renewable Energy: Nothing was included in the bill. This is our biggest disappointment, and really shows how far behind the Senate is in the global warming and clean energy movement. The American public overwhelmingly supports renewable energy, but the Senate couldn’t even bring a good proposal to the floor to be voted on. A real loss for the Senate, our country and our environment.
• Fuel Economy: For the first time since the 1970′s, Congress has raised the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks, to 35 mpg by 2020. This will result in a huge decrease in global warming pollution over the next 12 years. An amendment offered by Sen. Levin to weaken this did not reach the floor.
• Liquid Coal: Development of liquid coal was not included in the bill. Two votes occurred to include liquid coal production – one terrible, the other we could live with but did not support – both failed.
• Biofuels: The bill included provisions for next generation biofuels and includes some – but not all – the environmental safeguards and requirements we want. We are optimistic about getting these safeguards when the bill is conferenced with a House version.
• Tax incentive for Renewable Energy: Again, nothing included in the bill; and in the end there wasn’t even an up or down vote on this. Another big disappointment.

We now wait and see if the President will veto as threatened, and how this energy bill will get conferenced together with a House bill.

Yesterday, both the bad liquid coal amendment and the mediocre, compromise liquid coal amendment failed, leaving liquid coal out of the energy bill completely. This thrilled the environmental community (including NWF), but could hurt the bill’s overall chances for passing since Republican leadership has said they will filibuster the whole bill if it doesn’t include more fossil fuel (oil, gas or coal) production.  Talk about being stuck in the dinosaur age! (ba-dum-ching!) The bad Bunning-Domenici bill liquid coal bill failed. But, In trying to get it passed, Domenici and others had argued so strongly that the Testor compromise bill was terrible and unattainable, they couldn’t turn around and vote for the compromise bill, so it lost. Voting against the compromise was a rare mix of enviro champs and anti-enviros (Boxer and Inhofe voting together at last).

Today, we’re slated for more votes, including the bad Levin Fuel Economy amendment, which would weaken fuel economy provisions already in the bill. This will be a tight vote, so please give a quick call to your senators and make sure they will vote against the Levin amendment. It’s unclear when or if a renewable energy standard amendment will come to the floor, and it’s doubtful that it will be Senator Bingaman’s 15 percent renewables by 2020 that we so desperately need.

Finally, a quick reality check that this bill may be hard to get into law anyway: Republican senators are threatening to filibuster and the President is threatening to veto. The President is threatening a veto mainly because the “NOPEC” amendment passed yesterday, essentially declaring OPEC a violation of US anti-trust laws. Many see this NOPEC amendment as merely a symbolic gesture, but the President doesn’t want to upset OPEC, saying it would hurt US interests abroad.

Stay tuned for votes…

Over the weekend over 100 amendments were filed for the Senate, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he wanted to wrap up debate on the energy bill this week. Hmm… something’s gotta give, and it’s going to be the number of amendments voted on. With no voting today, we are likely to see a glut of voting tomorrow and Wednesday – but not 100 votes – before Sen. Reid invokes a closure vote to end debate on the energy bill and moves on to immigration.

Joining the 3 big amendments yet to be dealt with (CAFE-Fuel Economy; Renewable Energy Standard; and liquid coal), is Sen. Baucus’s $13.7 billion tax package to provide incentives for renewables and close tax loopholes for oil and gas leases. These 4 amendments are likely to come up this week, but could easily get waylaid if Senate leadership doesn’t have the votes. Speaking of which…

The scenario surrounding the Bingaman RES (Renewable Energy Standard) vote is a bit complicated. Republican leadership has threatened to filibuster; the Democrats could let them filibuster and have a “cloture” vote – needing 60 votes to end the filibuster – then have an up or down vote, which would need 50 to pass. Or, they could accept a deal where they have an up or down vote but needed 60 to pass. The way this plays out will depend on timing, whether they have the votes, and political grandstanding. We are working to get as much support for this amendment as possible, with the added message that this is too important to play politics with and senators should oppose the filibuster.

Finally, other issues we will be watching this week: Biden-Lugar resolution to get the US to re-engage in international climate treaties (will likely need 60 votes); an Arctic drilling amendment (unclear if it will be voted on, or just debated); a Climate registry amendment to get industry to monitor their carbon emissions (this was rejected by Sen. Domenici as “non-germaine”, or not relavant, to the bill; we are working to have it be allowed as an amendment).

Until the Votes begin tomorrow…