At over 1400 pages, I doubt many in the house of representatives read the Energy bill. I did, and here’s a brief summary. These are listed in the order they appear in the bill.             

The bill sets up a “Corporation to Oversee” which will collect a fee for any electricity produced with coal, natural gas or oil. Coal has the highest fee at 0.00043 cents per kilowatt hour. The Corporation can adjust the fees, but the total US assessment must be between $1 and $1.3 billion a year.

The bill has credits for all kinds of energy generating things like solar and wind, but nothing for nuclear power.

Electric utilities must make plans to support electric vehicles including charging stations, battery exchanges, etc.

Regular motor vehicles now produced must be E85 compatible.

Lots of talk about “Smart Grid” appliances and goals in percent reductions during times of peak power demand.

Wattage limits on incandescent bulbs (72 watts), new efficiency standards on all lights.

Nuclear power – one can build a new plant but no grant money, all financing must come from private sources.

Treasury is to issue “Green Bonds” - $7.5 billion to start. These bonds are termed “lawful investments” for all purposes. The bonds fund an energy administration and the board members get “compensated at the prevailing rate…for similar positions in industry.”

Every worker involved in any new energy project is to be paid at prevailing wage.

New construction homes and commercial buildings: 30% energy use reduction from the baseline code (the code is listed in the bill but since I’m not an engineer, I don’t understand it), by 2014 it’s 50% reduction and continues to reduce at 5% per year after that.

The “REEP” program is to retrofit existing residential and commercial buildings. There are some small payments to defer the cost. No requirement that it must be done, but that is left open-ended since the administrator of the corporation determines future events.

There are various energy conserving standards for new products: outdoor lighting, showerheads, toilets, washers, dishwashers, televisions, water heaters, wood and pellet stoves.

Anything (like an energy supplier or manufacturer) emitting a greenhouse gas will have limits on the emissions, but they can be exceeded if the supplier has “offset credits” which will be sold at an exchange like stocks are traded.

Low income households get a monthly energy refund amount based on what the administrator figures the increase in cost will be from all the compliance (I will say "taxation") required in this bill. Since this all gets passed right to the consumer and since it effects all of energy, it must be a very high cost to include monthly payments to the low income – but, as the bill does not mention any cost increase for consumers, this is just speculation on my part.

The bill establishes a National Climate Service – what it is supposed to do sounds very much like what NOAA already does now. This new service gets six regional centers and funding for staffing those and having field research staff. I think it’s a weird coincidence that the president already designated six regional centers for the Department of Homeland Security to use, with assistance from his civilian volunteer group (which passed in an earlier bill). The National Climate Service is to warn us of impending catastrophic climate change. Homeland Security and the volunteer corps are to help local authorities in case of disaster. It would be an interesting turn of events if an impending catastrophic climate change was also considered a disaster.