The House of Representatives passed H.R. 3221, the “New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act” on Saturday, August 4, 2007, by a vote of 241 to 172.

The bill includes provisions proposed and advanced by WORC, particularly better protections for western water resources and split-estate landowners facing oil and gas drilling on their land and stronger reclamation and bonding standards.

The bill also

• expands use of renewable energy,
• sets new efficiency standards for a variety of appliances, and
• ensures a balanced and reasonable approach to the potential development of oil shale and tar sands on public lands.

The House passed a number of positive amendments to H.R. 3221, including the Renewable Energy Standard offered by New Mexico Rep. Tom Udall. The standard requires private electric utilities to generate 15% of their power with renewable sources and efficiency measures by 2020.

Other important sections contain modest but important reforms of the Department of the Interior’s onshore oil and gas program that will help ensure that oil and gas development on public lands takes place with proper environmental safeguards. The reform balances our nation’s need for oil and natural gas with the need to protect the environment, wildlife, and the rights of property owners.

In addition, H.R. 3221 contains innovative provisions that will put America on the road to a sustainable energy future, protect public lands and resources from the impacts of climate change, and begin dealing with the problems of carbon dioxide emissions to the earth’s atmosphere.

The House also passed H.R. 2776, the “Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2007.” The bill provides tax incentives to encourage renewable energy production and conservation and removes a number of roadblocks to renewable energy production. It represents an enormous boost for renewable energy, and is funded largely by revocation of some federal oil and gas subsidies.

Despite these victories, however, the bill still has to be reconciled with the Senate, which has passed its own version of an energy reform package.