US Senate and House energy leaders headed into the preelection recess pledging to reach a compromise before yearend, but were still divided over Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas leasing reforms.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-NM) said he was disappointed that an agreement was not reached before recess. “I hope the House will take the necessary time in October to step back and reflect on the number of compromises the Senate has offered to break the current impasse,” he said.
“I hope the House recognizes what is politically possible in the Senate,” Domenici added, possibly referring to the promise by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) that he would filibuster any compromise that did not establish a 16-year leasing ban up to 125 miles off the state’s coastline.
House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) and five other House members-John E. Peterson (R-Pa.), Neil Abercrombie (D-Hi.), Bobby Jindal (R-La.), Charlie Melancon (D-La.) and Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.)-issued a joint statement that they “have gotten very close to working out the differences between our bill and that passed by the Senate.”
They said remaining issues include questions over boundary lines in S. 3711, which the Senate approved Aug. 1, and how the map lines will affect division of future federal OCS revenues among Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Louisiana’s two US senators apparently are divided over negotiating tactics. “While I was working with others to break the logjam between the House and the Senate, others in our delegation chose to divert their time and energy to blaming others,” Republican David Vitter said Sept. 29.
‘The deal is dead’
Three days earlier, Democrat Mary L. Landrieu said insistence by House conferees to retain HR 4761’s language giving states on the east and west coasts shares of federal coastal revenues if they allowed drilling 100 miles off their own coasts was “holding back our chances for a fair compromise,” adding, “Until the House moves off this position, the deal is dead.”
Vitter said, “As we continue to work on this key legislation, it’s not the time to attack the other party or the other chamber, or to take extreme measures like placing holds on dozens of unrelated bills. This will kill our chances, not improve them.”
Landrieu did not respond directly, but her communications director Adam Sharp said Vitter was entitled to his opinion “but the people of Louisiana know that Sen. Landrieu’s voice has been strong and effective in fighting for Louisiana’s coast.”
In a separate statement on Sept. 29, Landrieu said she hoped S. 3711’s focused approach on OCS Lease Sale 181 acreage, which President George W. Bush withdrew during his first term, and adjacent deepwater tracts farther south “will motivate House negotiators to move away from their Atlantic drilling strategy and toward the Gulf Coast approach already embraced by the Senate and the president.”
She said she would continue to work with Domenici, Majority Leader William H. Frist (R-Tenn.), Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) to achieve a compromise with the House when Congress returns on Nov. 13.
But Pombo and the five other House members said Senate negotiators have agreed that a bill must contain a provision to recover Gulf of Mexico deepwater royalties which were not collected because price thresholds were not included in leases issued during 1998 and 1999, and to use part of those revenues to help Gulf Coast states recover from 2005 hurricane damage.
“Finally, the Senate has acknowledged the need to expand and diversify America’s energy infrastructure beyond the Gulf of Mexico,” the six House members said.
