04/25/05 Energy bill faces another Senate fight

US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns may have summed it up best when he said its time to move. JOHANNS "Four years of debate is enough. Its time to pass an energy bill." And that's exactly what happened late last week in the House of Representatives. VOTE CALL "The yeas are 249, the nays are 183. The bill is passed." Passage of the bill marked the fifth time since 2001 that the House has passed a bi-partisan energy bill only to see the previous four die in the Senate. This bill has many important features says Johanns. JOHANNS "It has provisions in it that are very, very helpful in terms of biodiesel, ethanol. So why not do the right things, put them in place to do everything we can to bring energy independence while helping the nation's farmers. How can you be against something like that?" Those provisions aren't the ones that have caused past problems or will create headaches this time around. It's the drilling in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge and the MTBE controversies that have derailed the energy bills in the Senate in the past and those issues are still unresolved. In the meantime developers of several Idaho renewable energy projects sit and wait to see what if anything will happen on Capitol Hill. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott