They are doing one. The house passed its version a while ago, the senate just passed their version. They now gotta do the conference committee bit and weld the two bills into one. Obama has said he will sign it. It's gonna spend $10 billion or so.
On what? There is some unspecified research and development money. Probably another try to convince people that solar or wind power is worthy and green, rather than a scam on tax payers and rate payers. I, and a lotta other people and industries, need the power to stay on all the time. We cannot stand hearing the electric company calling to say, "Sorry, the wind dropped, (or the sun went down) and we are going to shut your juice off for six hours." For me, that means the furnace won't work and my pipes will freeze. For industry it means that batches of product under going various heat treatments will be ruined. Every something as old and well understood as baking bread cannot tolerate the oven going cold before the bread is baked. High tech processes are even more sensitive.
And there is money to work on "storage" of electricity on a utilities scale. That's batteries which are ridiculously expensive. A lead acid battery big enough to crank my V-8 car engine for a couple of minutes costs $50. A lithium battery big enough to run my laptop for a couple of hours costs $50. A battery bank big enough to run a small town would cost billions. For that sort of money I can build a nuke plant, or two or three natural gas fired plants. How do you say total waste of money?
And there is some unspecified subsidy for those evil fossil fuels. The ones that produce dependable power. Even at today's price of oil, they don't need a subsidy.
They tried to slip in a provision to clean up Flint Michigan's city water problem. Worthy but hardly an energy concern. There is probably a good deal more pork buried in it, which is why Obama said he would sign it.
The TV newsies haven't said a word about it.
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