New Direction for Energy Independence, National Security, and Consumer Protection Act.

Congress attempts to reduce carbon emissions. Ahem, attempts:

... the bill undermines energy independence by raising taxes on domestic production and throwing up new barriers to exploration. It's hard to see how it has any effect on national security, and we're at a loss about its consumer-protection claim too, unless you think Americans need "protecting" from the incandescent lightbulb. The bill bans those, effective 2012, on page 601.

But its worst (and little noticed) provision may be a requirement that 15% of U.S. electricity be generated from "renewable" sources by 2020. Utilities that can't meet these goals are fined -- taxed, really -- based on how far short of this Eden they fall. Currently, only about 3% is provided by such renewables as wind, solar or "biofuels."

In any case, as we're all discovering with corn-based ethanol, renewables have their own problems, both substantive and political. Liberals are all for wind power -- as long as it doesn't obstruct their oceanfront views off Nantucket. Hydro power is dandy -- except it kills fish and disrupts their habitat. Solar requires acres and acres of real estate. There's plenty of land for solar arrays in the middle of the country, or at least there was before the land was turned over to grow corn for heavily subsidized ethanol. And, by the way, using farmland for energy means using less to grow food -- which means higher prices at the kitchen table, or more food imports, or both. The House Members who voted for this must figure all of this will be some other Congress's problem.

Earlier this year, Mr. Dingell suggested that if Congress were really serious about global warming, it would impose a carbon tax. At least that's being honest about the costs. The "renewables" mandate in the House energy bill, by contrast, is a multibillion-dollar stealth tax on electrical utilities, and ultimately on electricity users. The danger is that, with all eyes on car-mileage standards, this tax could become law without many people even noticing.