House Debates Controversial Energy Bill : Congress: A major floor fight is expected over the provisions on nuclear power from the industry and Bush Administration.

The House began debating a wide-ranging and controversial bill Wednesday that tries to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil by encouraging development of nuclear power and a new generation of alternative fuels.

Passage of the Comprehensive National Energy Policy Act would mark the first time in more than 10 years that both houses of Congress have acted to set down the broad outlines of a national energy strategy.

The Senate passed its version of the bill in February. The House is expected to complete action on the legislation this week, before Congress adjourns for its 10-day Memorial Day recess.

A major floor fight is expected, however, over the bill’s provisions on nuclear power, with the nuclear industry and the Bush Administration trying to eliminate safeguards that environmentalists succeeded in writing into the legislation. The safeguards allow for public hearings before newly built nuclear plants can begin operating.

Bush, who favors the Senate version, has threatened to veto the bill if it comes to his desk with the House language on nuclear power plant licensing. The Administration has also served notice that several other provisions added by the nine House committees that claimed jurisdiction over parts of the legislation could provoke a veto if they are not removed from the bill in a conference with Senate negotiators next month.

Both bills aim to significantly reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil over the next 20 years by promoting the development of renewable energy sources like solar and geothermal power and alternative fuels such as ethanol and methanol. The bills would also encourage conservation by setting new, higher energy efficiency standards for offices, homes and the electric power industry.

Another far-reaching provision, originally opposed by segments of the electricity industry but now enjoying broad support among lawmakers, would reform the Depression-era regulations still governing electric utilities to create a new class of independent power producers who could sell electricity across state lines on a wholesale basis to local utility companies.

But the House and Senate bills are at odds over nuclear licensing.

Both bills would allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue a single license for the construction and operation of nuclear plants, streamlining the traditional two-step procedure in which a utility first had to obtain a license to build a plant and then, after construction, a second license to operate it.

In practice, the NRC has already begun using combined licensing, but the Senate bill would codify the procedure, eliminating several challenges pending in the courts. The House bill also adopts “one-step” licensing, but language added by Interior Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Martinez) would require the NRC to hold a second formal hearing if significant safety questions arose during construction.

Proponents of nuclear power were planning to mount an effort to strike Miller’s language on nuclear licensing with an amendment to make it conform to the Senate version and lawmakers on both sides of the issue said they expected the vote to be close.

Other provisions added by the House committees over Administration objections would impose stronger, more sweeping restrictions on offshore oil drilling and impose a requirement that oil refineries contribute a portion of the domestic or foreign oil they buy to the strategic petroleum reserve. The latter provision, seen by the White House as tantamount to a new oil tax, could also trigger a Bush veto if it is not removed from the final version of the bill, Administration officials have warned.