More talk than progress in U.S. energy policy

The administration's economic stimulus package steered billions of dollars toward alternative energy, conservation and efficiency. Sweeping bills in Congress to fight global warming threatened to charge the oil industry - and others - for the greenhouse gases they emit.

The federal government fixated on energy in a way it hadn't for years.

"Haven't seen anything like it since the Arab oil embargo," said William Hederman, senior vice president for energy policy at the Concept Capital research firm. "But it's still largely potential change more than actual change, in a lot of ways."

Indeed, despite all the attention, many of the biggest energy issues broached by Washington this year remain unresolved, due in part to the frenzy of lobbying from every industry and interest group involved.

A climate change bill that would create a "cap and trade" system for lowering greenhouse gas emissions passed the House of Representatives. But a similar bill remains stuck in the Senate, stalled by the fierce opposition of Republicans and the qualms of Democrats worried about the economic impact.

Competing studies have claimed the House and Senate climate bills would create jobs or kill them. That presents a difficult choice for some wavering Democratic senators facing re-election next year.

"One has to ask the question, will those folks put their jobs on the line?" said John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute. His organization, the oil industry's main lobbying group, insists the cap-and-trade bills would destroy jobs and push oil refining overseas.

Although the $787 billion stimulus package didn't suffer the same fate, passing Congress within President Obama's first month in office, the money it devoted to alternative energy has been slow to flow. Some companies have received funding. Fremont's Solyndra Inc., which makes tube-shaped solar panels, won a $535 million federal loan guarantee to build its second factory in the Bay Area. Construction began in September.

For the companies planning big solar power plants in the California desert, some of the most important stimulus funding won't come until next year. Under the stimulus package, they can receive a grant worth 30 percent of each plant's cost, in lieu of taking a tax credit of equal value. But to get the grant, they must start construction before the end of 2010, a deadline many will have a hard time meeting.

"I firmly believe the stimulus funding will have an effect, but we haven't seen it yet," said Joel Makower, co-founder of Clean Edge, a research firm that follows renewable energy. "The money's still rolling out, and even once it lands in someone's bank account, they don't just get it Monday and spend it Tuesday."