Last week it was the Food and Agriculture bill. This week, the Energy Bill. Zachary Coile of the SF Chronicle accepts the prevailing wisdom of Speaker Pelosi’s need to balance competing interests, and so, not gun for the tougher standards many are calling for.

I have no doubt it would be a tough job to herd those cats, but with every compromise I want to know: what is the educational value of this reach-large, seize-small approach? Will the discussion generated bring more people into fuller knowledge of what is looming before us? Will the national conversation change enough so that people will run and be elected who can embed their local priorities into the large and difficult choices that must be made in the next ten years? This is the leadership challenge I don’t see being met during the horse-trading fairs going on in D.C. now.

The Democratic speaker from San Francisco has told environmentalists she supports raising fuel economy standards to at least 35 miles per gallon and requiring utilities to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind, solar or biomass by 2020.

But neither measure is part of the energy bill now, and Pelosi has not committed to bringing the proposals to the floor as amendments — although she’s leaning toward putting the electricity standard to a vote.

Pelosi is balancing her desire for a new, greener energy policy with her fear that if the bill tries to go too far, it could lose support among Democrats from energy- and auto-producing states — who are being lobbied vigorously by industry to kill parts of the bill.

Energy Bill