Semi agreed with you Charon on the relative value of the energy bill... It does some good things but it does them with tax benefits, not outright legislation.
One thing I am NOT pleased with is the funding to boost the use of ethanol in motor fuel. Back in 1998 and 1999 before the entire country went to crappy alcohol laced fuel, I'd get up to 34 mpg in my 305hp TransAm. The difference back then was amazing... I could fill up in CA and get barely 26-27 mpg on the freeway, but as soon as I was running nevada or arizona gas, I'd be up well above 30. Nowadays, the best I can get is about 28 and it's all because of the non-gasoline additives that reduce the energy content of the fuel. Alcohol oxygenates the engine which is great for emissions, but it lowers the overall ability of the engine to produce power from the fuel because there is simply less energy in alcohol than in petroleum.
When some "normal" reasonably high-output engines (power per liter) can be classed as "ultra low emission" powerplants even with today's fuel, it makes me believe that the whole ethanol in fuel (and that crap that gets put into CA gas that smells funny) thing is just a clever bit of lobbying by the farming industry. They found that the Calif fuel additive is incredibly long-lasting in the environment and it is contaminating every water source in the state, but there are some powerful lobbying forces behind it so the environmental lobby is torn between goals - They want the water to be pure but this additive reduces emissions by a little bit. So California get funny smelling gas and contaminated water, and someone gets rich selling a government mandated fuel additive.
As for high octane, any car with a computer that is aggressive enough to REALLY tweak the fuel/air mixture and timing will benefit from higher octane gas. Even the 1993 nissan micra I drove around the UK for a while (a bit under 60 hp if I recall correctly) would get a measurable 5-6 hp boost from running high octane fuel instead of regular, simply because the engine control computer was aggressive enough to take advantage of the high octane. Many cars have simpler/cheaper computers however, and they simply won't make aggressive enough corrections for the fuel to make a difference.
In my TransAm, the difference between low and high octane fuel is in the neighborhood of 30hp and 5 mpg. The high octane fuel is much better overall, although I have noticed an increase in low rpm torque with the tax-subsidized low octane fuel I get on base here. That makes it a bit easier to drive on a daily basis but my mileage is around 23 mpg when it should be around 27 mpg. But there's no way in heck I'm gonna pay $7/gal for the good stuff so I'll just keep buying the cheap stuff and hope it doesn't wreck my cats and sensors. It's already clogged my fuel filter after a year and a half but those are pretty cheap/easy to replace.
