A few late-arriving cost estimates have come through for bills on the House floor this week. This may not make or break your wallet, but it’s good to know.

H.R. 2265, the Magna Water District Water Reuse and Groundwater Recharge Act of 2009, costs $0.11 per U.S. family.

H.R. 2522, which raises the ceiling on the Federal share of the cost of the Calleguas Municipal Water District Recycling Project, costs $0.14 per U.S. family.

H.R. 2741, which amends the Reclamation Wastewater and Groundwater Study and Facilities Act to authorize the Secretary of the Interior to participate in the City of Hermiston, Oregon, water recycling and reuse project, costs the average U.S. family about $0.06.

There are also a few bills that already had estimates:

H.R. 860, the Coral Reef Conservation Act Reauthorization and Enhancement Amendments of 2009, comes in at $1.75 per U.S. family.

H.R. 1080, the Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Enforcement Act of 2009, costs $0.48.

H.R. 2802 would provide for an extension of the legislative authority of the Adams Memorial Foundation to establish a commemorative work in honor of former President John Adams and his legacy. At a cost of pretty much zero per U.S. family.

H.R. 3113, the Upper Elk River Wild and Scenic Study Act: Also zero per U.S. family.

It’s less than the price of a sandwich if these all pass, but then again, you don’t get to eat them either.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office issued a cost estimate for H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The bill would establish not one, but two “cap-and-trade” programs designed to limit the release of undesirable gasses into the atmosphere.

“Cap-and-trade” is when the government limits (”caps”) the emissions of greenhouse gasses and hydrofluorocarbons then issues tradeable credits for emissions. The idea is to force industries to find the most efficient ways they can to reduce these gasses and improve the environment.

But cap-and-trade don’t come cheap. The estimated cost of the bill is about $12,000 per U.S. family. It’s the most costly bill in the current Congress, just like a similar bill was in the last Congress.

(The cost figures we use here are known as “net present value.” That’s the amount you would have to put in the bank today to fund future spending. The CBO estimate includes ten years of spending and tax colletions. There’s more about our cost reporting on our “about” page.)

So if you want to reduce greenhouse gasses, be prepared to pay the price. To some it may be worth it, to others it may not be. Where do you come down on it?

Below is the current vote on H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

Dan Neil of the L.A. Times writes about his alternative proposal for spending on federal energy programs:

[T]he U.S. Department of Energy budgetary request for fiscal 2010 is $65 billion, including nearly $40 billion from the National Economic Recovery Act. The 2010 Toyota Prius will probably come in around $23,000 when prices are announced later this spring. Since we’ve got the federal checkbook open, what if we took $46 billion and bought everybody Priuses? Would that help?

Why yes, yes it would.

By my calculations, $46 billion would buy about 2 million Priuses. Assuming we use them to replace cars that get 15 mpg and assuming an average driving year of 15,000 miles – and assuming the junkers are retired out of the fleet – these 2 million Priuses would save about 700 gallons of gas per car, or 1.4 billion gallons a year.

. . .

Other advantages would include a significant reduction in vehicle-related greenhouse gas emissions. Such a scheme wouldn’t really hurt our balance of trade, either, since Toyota would have to subcontract Prius assembly to U.S facilities to meet demand.

So, here at the blueprint stage, it’s a win-win-win. Not sure that a federal Prius promotion program would actually get implemented the way he imagines, but it’s fun to roll around different ways for solving energy and environmental problems.

I’ll take mine in green.

Until today, it had been over a week since the Congressional Budget Office published a new cost estimate. This is the source of most of the cost estimates here. Y’know, the cost estimates you have grown to know and love. We take their estimates and plug it into our database, which calculates the per-family, net present value cost or savings. (More on that here.)

You can see every new cost estimates by following the “Cost/Savings” RSS feed. (What’s an “RSS feed”? It takes a little learnin’. Read here.)

The exciting new scored bill? H.R. 1262, The Water Quality Investment Act of 2009. It’ll be on the House floor tomorrow (Thursday). About $130 per U.S. family.

Monday was another day with a cavalcade of bills streaming through the House of Representatives.

While you were watching the bailout (just at the moment I’m posting this, the House is debating the rule that would govern its debate on the Senate-passed bailout bill), or perhaps noting the beginning of the new fiscal year without a budget for most federal agencies, Congress was passing bills on half the things under the sun.

[Previous posts in this series: Silly Season on Capitol Hill; Silly Season, Part Deux; and Silly Season, Part C.]

Here are some of the bills that saw action on the House floor Monday:

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Silly season on Capitol Hill. It’s that special time of year when Congress nears the end of its scheduled session and decides to do all its work at once. Dozens of bills fly across the House floor with little debate.

They’re not all bad bills, but nothing prevented Congress from addressing them at a careful pace all through the winter, spring, and summer.

This year has been particularly silly, as Congress didn’t even try to follow its annual budgeting and spending process. It just passed a temporary measure on the fly, funding the government through the first half of the fiscal year in one big bill.

Then along came the financial services crisis. (Or is it a “crisis”? I’m less and less sure that it’s a crisis for anyone more than the investment bankers who overextended themselves.)

Smack dab at the end of the session, right when members want to go home and campaign, they have to think about a $700 bailout of the financial services industry. (Text of the proposal that failed Monday is here.)

Congress comes back Thursday – maybe to consider another bailout proposal. Don’t lose focus on that issue just yet!

But for the moment, let’s take a look at some of what the Congress did while we focused on everything else that Congress was doing. These are the bills that went to the floor of the House of Representatives on Saturday. The bills that were on the House floor last Thursday and Friday are here and here. Monday’s bills coming soon:
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No, this is not about the latest energy drink.

The Environmental Protection Agency has decided not to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient called perchlorate that can be found in public water supplies around the country. The scuttlebutt suggests that the Department of Defense would be seriously on the hook if EPA did go after this chemical.

At least three bills already introduced in Congress go after the perchlorate problem.

S. 24, the Perchlorate Monitoring and Right-to-Know Act would amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to require a health advisory and monitoring of drinking water for perchlorate. Cost: about $0.20 per U.S. family.

S. 150, the Protecting Pregnant Women and Children From Perchlorate Act would simply require a health advisory and drinking water standard for perchlorate. Cost: about $0.04 per U.S. family.

In the House, H.R. 1747, the Safe Drinking Water for Healthy Communities Act, would require a national primary drinking water regulation for perchlorate, the thing the EPA just declined to do. No cost estimate on that yet.

So if you don’t want perchlorate in your drinking water or your pregnant friends, one of these may be bill for you. Here’s the current vote on each. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki articles about the bills.

In not one, but two proposed regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency is adding new sites to the National Priorities List. Maybe one of them is in your home town!

Our congratulations go out to:

• Iron King Mine–Humboldt Smelter in Dewey-Humboldt, AZ
• Nelson Tunnel/Commodore Waste Rock in Creede, CO
• Flash Cleaners in Pompano Beach, FL
• Aberdeen Contaminated Ground Water in Aberdeen, NC
• East Troy Contaminated Aquifer in Troy, OH
• Old Esco Manufacturing in Greenville, TX

and to:

• B.F. Goodrich in Rialto, CA
• Raleigh Street Dump in Tampa, FL
• Arkla Terra Property in Thonotosassa,FL
• U.S. Smelter and Lead Refinery, Inc. in East Chicago, IN
• Curtis Papers, Inc. in Milford, NJ
• Behr Dayton Thermal System VOC Plume in Dayton, OH
• New Carlisle Landfill in New Carlisle, OH
• Borit Asbestos Tailings Pile in Ambler, PA
• Barite Hill/Nevada Goldfields in McCormick, SC
• U.S. Magnesium in Tooele County, UT

Well, perhaps it’s not congratulations these places should be getting.

There is this thing called the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan. It’s required by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (known as “CERCLA” to us insiders), and it includes a list of national priorities among the known releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances, pollutants, or contaminants throughout the United States.

This is the National Priorities List, and the EPA uses it to decide which sites warrant further investigation for public health and environmental risks associated with the site and to determine what the EPA might do about it.

So evidently being put on this list is some part of cleaning up toxics, but it’s quite complicated, bureaucratic, and dense. But our congratulations – er, condolences – go out to the new members of the list!

(The Environmental Protection Agency is funded through the Interior and Environment Appropriations bill. Alas, the bill for FY 2009 hasn’t been introduced in either House of Congress yet – even though the new fiscal year starts in less than a month!)

This is a bill so huge, you should fear its wrath if you don’t support it.

It’s “The MEGA.”

Congressional staff put a surprising amount of time and effort into naming their bills in clever ways. If the title of the bill can be made to spell something clever, the bill will be more likely to pass and better for the country, right? (Like the USA-PATRIOT Act!)

So this one’s called “The MEGA.” That stands for Metro Economies Green Act. It’s a name that doesn’t actually mean anything, but it’s probably about some environmental something.

BUT YOU MUST FEAR IT! FEAR THE MEGA AND SUPPORT IT!

Here’s the current vote on the MEGA. Click to vote, comment, learn more, fear the MEGA, or edit the wiki article about the bill.

I wrote about the campaigning on S. 3268, the Stop Energy Speculation Act of 2008, here a few days ago.

The debate has taken a new twist as Republicans have pushed to expand domestic oil production as the preferred way of controlling energy prices.

Well, the World Wildlife Fund wants you to know that oil drilling is a big no-no. They’ve put an ad in the New York Times, and they want you to know about it. According to a release they’ve got out on the wires:

While more drilling would have virtually no impact on gas prices, the ad says, it could have a profoundly negative impact on America’s wilderness and waters and could jeopardize the nation’s billion dollar fisheries industry. WWF, which has a team of scientists and experts based in Alaska, notes in the ad that a major oil spill in Alaskan waters – where approximately half of all U.S. seafood is caught – could have a devastating impact on both the economy and the environment. It further states that oil companies have no proven method for cleaning up major oil spills in Arctic waters, further exacerbating the risk to protected areas.

Ah, the push and pull of legislative debate. To stop energy speculation? Drill for more oil? Fair-minded people can see both sides in both sides. And it looks like Congress will go to its August recess like Hamlet, without deciding.

What do you think? Here’s the vote on the Stop Energy Speculation Act of 2008. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article.