Energy security bill sidetracked again

Stalled $73 billion economic stimulus bill probably won’t have energy amendment, energy discussion unlikely in Senate until after Thanksgiving

Steve Sutherlin

PNA Managing Editor

The slow and excruciating path of energy security legislation was twisted twice Nov. 14 as strategies to launch an energy discussion on the U.S. Senate floor imploded in both the Senate and the U.S. House. The energy discussion and a Senate vote on drilling in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will likely be delayed until after the Thanksgiving recess, PNA was told Nov. 15 by Arctic Power in Washington, D.C.

In the Senate, a Democrat-proposed $73 billion economic stimulus package, widely seen as a potential vehicle for an energy bill amendment, ground to a halt as Senate Republicans and the White House called its spending levels too high and its tax cuts too low. At this point both sides will be reluctant to complicate stimulus package negotiations with additional amendments, Arctic Power said.

In the House, pro-ANWR drilling members sought to attach the House energy bill HR4, which contains a provision approving exploration and drilling in ANWR’s coastal plain, to a defense appropriation bill. In essence, this move would have had the House voting on a measure it has already passed because in August it voted open the coastal plain of ANWR for oil and gas exploration.

When the defense bill moved to the Senate, the attached HR4 would have forced the Senate to consider energy issues. But a number of lawmakers saw the same bill as a mule for their own favored amendments, prompting the committee chairman to nix amendments to the bill. The White House also warned against loading amendments onto the defense bill because of national security concerns.

An agricultural bill favored by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle scheduled for markup on Nov. 15 might encounter an energy security amendment, but if that happens it is unlikely that debate would begin until after Thanksgiving, Arctic Power said.

Arctic Power and its supporters are devising several new strategies to introduce energy discussion in the Senate, despite Senate Democratic leadership committed to stalling the issue.

In the aftermath of the spirit of cooperation that existed in Congress following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, full-out partisan squabbling and maneuvering seems to have returned, Arctic Power said.

In other words, business as usual.