Watching Government: Refining bills stall in Senate

Nov. 7, 2005
L ike a professional sports event, refining legislation before the 109th Congress has reached a point where you can’t tell the players without a program.

Like a professional sports event, refining legislation before the 109th Congress has reached a point where you can’t tell the players without a program. That’s because there are not one, but two, refining bills awaiting action before Senate committees.

Soon after the Environment and Public Works Committee deadlocked over its bill, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee took jurisdiction over the so-called “Barton bill” passed by the House. The informal designation reflects its origin in the House Energy and Commerce Committee chaired by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.).

It differs from the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s bill, which aims to provide incentives not to refiners but to communities that might want to participate in construction of new refineries and other industrial plants, a spokesman for the committee’s majority explained.

He told me that the committee’s chairman, James N. Inhofe (R-Okla.), developed S. 1772 in response to job losses resulting from military base shutdowns ordered by the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure Commission.

Democrats’ response

The committee’s minority members had problems with Inhofe’s bill. Their chief, Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.), said he still was not convinced current permitting requirements are seriously impeding additional refining capacity. Even if they are, he continued, the Environmental Protection Agency hasn’t finished implementing streamlining provisions in the energy bill Congress passed this summer.

Instead, Jeffords and the Democrats offered an amendment to establish a Strategic Refinery Reserve. The idea aimed to extend the successful Strategic Petroleum Reserve concept, a spokeswoman for the committee’s minority explained.

The amendment would have given EPA’s administrator authority, in coordination with the federal energy secretary, “to design and construct new refineries or acquire and reopen closed refineries.” The committee rejected it by a 10-8 vote along party lines.

But it also did not act on Inhofe’s original bill when Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-RI) voted with the minority against it. “Chairman Inhofe said we’re going to regroup and decide what’s the best route for moving forward,” the committee majority spokesman said.

Possible steps

Under Senate Rule 14, Inhofe could put his bill directly on the Senate calendar for consideration. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) would have to call it to the floor, however, and that doesn’t seem likely since he wants to finish budget legislation by Thanksgiving.

US President George W. Bush also has asked for a prompt vote on his nomination of federal appeals judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the US Supreme Court, crowding the Senate’s calendar further.

So it’s likelier that Inhofe and the committee will do some refining of their own before bringing S. 1772 back early in 2006.

That should be about when the Energy and Natural Resources Committee tackles the Barton bill. Democrats on that committee plan to give it a critical look since it passed the full House by only two votes.