By OGJ editors
WASHINGTON, DC, Feb. 5 --Energy legislation remains stalled before the US Congress, although a key Senate sponsor is hopeful that a trimmer, less controversial version could still pass this session.
US Senate Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) said Feb. 3 he plans to offer colleagues later this month a bill that no longer includes a contentious provision to extend liability protections to the fuel additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). He also will pare back the $31 billion tax title, but he has not said where the cuts will be.
A compromise bill brokered with the House last November failed by two votes to win final Senate approval; MTBE liability and tax breaks doomed the legislation.
Meanwhile, Domenici's House counterpart, Energy and Commerce Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) plans to resign his leadership post Feb. 16; he will leave Congress at the end of the term.
Industry lobbyists downplayed the impact his absence will have on the energy bill because House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was the lawmaker who orchestrated the House's position during last year's negotiations. Tauzin's anticipated replacement, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), holds views similar to DeLay on oil and gas issues.
In the past, House Republicans have said they will not accept a bill without MTBE liability protections; an earlier Senate version extended the "safe harbor" to ethanol additives. Now, with the prospect of a new Senate bill to consider, some House Republicans are hinting they might accept legislation without MTBE liability protection if they can bring back other provisions to the negotiating table.
ANWR
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard W. Pombo (R-Calif.), a DeLay protégé, wants to help fund a pending highway bill with federal lease sales from a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Opening just 2,000 acres for leasing could yield $2.1 billion to the US Treasury, Pombo suggested.
Both Republican and Democratic leaders are mulling the addition of streamlined energy legislation to the highway bill. But adding ANWR back into the discussion could kill energy legislation, according to congressional sources. The Senate narrowly rejected the House's ANWR provision last year.
Unlike ANWR, a pending ethanol mandate provision now in the energy bill is expected to pass this Congress one way or the other. The proposal requires fuel suppliers to meet a 3.1 billion gal/year level beginning in 2005; it rises to 5 billion gal/year by 2012.
Suppliers not interested in using ethanol could trade credits; US officials may suspend the targets if the mandate results in severe fuel shortages. House Republicans also are looking at alternative legislation to promote domestic energy, assuming the energy bill fails. Lawmakers from oil and gas producing states are drafting a plan that would give states more authority over offshore drilling (OGJ, Nov. 3, 2003, p. 28).
Proponents say they want to encourage exploration in gas-prone offshore areas on the Outer Continental Shelf, now off limits because of existing federal moratoriums. The White House officially opposes lifting existing OCS moratoriums. DDD
