speaking of enacting standards of efficiency...here's a watered-down Energy Bill

On Thursday evening, the Senate, by a vote of 86-8, passed an energy bill that will raise fuel-economy standards by 40% and dramatically boost production of ethanol and other biofuels. But it is merely a shadow of the bill Democrats wanted just last week, which would have required utilities to get 15% of their electricity from renewable power. They also had proposed a nearly $22 billion tax package that would have allowed Congress to extend existing production and investment incentives for wind and solar power, raising money from Big Oil to help offset the spending.

Earlier in the day, the Senate voted not to move debate on the bill forward. But after an afternoon of deal making, Democrats were able to win support for the measure by dropping the tax package, which would have raised taxes on BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell. The renewable electricity mandate was omitted after the Senate blocked the bill on a procedural vote last week.

Under the new legislation, the fleetwide standard will be raised to an average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020, up from 25 mpg today.

The bill also includes a provision to increase biofuel production to 36 billion gallons per year by 2022. Of this amount, 21 billion gallons must come from biofuels other than corn-based ethanol. Last year, total ethanol production in the United States was about 5 billion gallons, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry group. source