The House is scheduled to vote today on their latest incarnation of an energy bill:

Energy bill vote pushed to today amid opposition

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democratic leaders pushed back a vote on an energy bill with a historic increase in fuel economy standards until today, in the face of growing opposition from Senate Republicans, President George W. Bush and even some Democrats.

As outlined by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the bill would include new requirements for renewable fuels, the elimination of $21 billion tax breaks to oil companies and other sources of revenue, and require electric utilities to generate 15% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Two updates:

1. The House Rules Committee has taken testimony on all of the amendments and is prepared, but hasn't yet scheduled a meeting to vote on the Rule for consideration of the energy bills. It is still possible for the House to take up the energy bills later today.

2. About the Udall RPS, the today's revised version can be found here (PDF warning). A couple of notes: Municipal solid waste is not included as an eligible renewable resource. 25 states have municipal solid waste to energy plants. Among these are 12 of the states that have RPS and that include municipal solid waste energy plants in their RPS. MSW is controversial among those who consider themselves among the environmental community. Readers can help their Members by informing them if they have an opinion about the current amendment.

As mentioned in our previous update, Dave Roberts has a nice writeup over at the Gristmill on the national RPS here.

We continue to beseech TOD Readers to inform their Members about their particular recommendations for voting for or against amendments and/or the bill, especially the adopting of a national Renewable Portfolio Standard. The Capitol Hill Switchboard is 202-225-3121--it is a good idea to know your Member's name or your zip code (all nine digits) when calling--Members only want to hear from their constituents.

Our previous posts on the topic (which contain links to legislation and proposed amendments) can be found here and here.

UPDATE: Text of the bill H.R. 969 -- T.Udall-Platts RPS can be downloaded using the search engine on the House website: www.house.gov. There is a deadline of 5pm 8/1 for Members to submit amendments to the Rules Committee for the Energy Bill. Any amendment filed MAY differ from the text of bills as introduced.

Amendments to the Energy bill have to be approved by the Rules Committee for floor votes (9 to 5 ratio of Speaker-appointed Democratic to Republican members). It will meet on Thursday. Links to approved amendments will be posted at the Rules Committee website. It can be accessed through the House home page at www.house.gov .

Oil Drum readers are encouraged to peruse recent coverage by CQ Today and EandENews (included below the fold) concerning the contents and status of elements in the bill and voice their reactions to, and analysis of, the legislation in this thread.

Under the fold are links to the actual text of the two bills - an energy bill and a tax bill. These two bills may well be combined into one bill by the House Rules Committee for debate and consideration this Friday.

I can promise you that there will be congressional staffers reading this thread. Therefore please keep it on point, off topic comments will be deleted. I have received emails from staffers who were impressed with our last effort, by the way.

Readers are also encouraged to inform their Members about their recommendations for voting for or against the bill. Two issues of continuing controversy and vote counting are raising CAFÉ standards and adopting a national Renewable Portfolio Standard. The Capitol Hill Switchboard is 202-225-3121--it is a good idea to know your Member's name or your zip code (all nine digits) when calling--Members only want to hear from their constituents.

If you don't know about our House Energy Project (HEP), check out this link first: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2713 (please keep all of the comments on this topic in that thread...thanks.)

Under the fold is an updated schedule and lots more resources for you all to use for the HEP.