Unless the White House decides to bomb Iraq in the near future, it's likely the energy price "crisis" is temporarily over for American consumers.
And those stable prices mean there is not much incentive for Congress to wade through the political minefield of a comprehensive energy bill in an election year.
Debate begins
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) says he remains committed to debating energy legislation this winter, although there is no indication when votes will happen.
Industry groups are still lobbying for change, although they concede that legislation they want may not be part of one bill.
Twenty members of the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States said their visits to lawmakers and White House officials in early February "were a huge success," even though the take-home message they got was that passage of a comprehensive energy bill remains an uphill battle. IPAMS says an energy reform bill is still needed because policy-makers should ensure adequate oil supplies are available for national security and economic reasons.
But some policy-makers privately question whether a comprehensive energy bill is needed. Congressional staff who were on Capitol Hill when Congress last tackled sweeping energy legislation in 1992 say it is always important to update laws and regulation as markets evolve. But trying to string together diverse and often controversial issues such as expanded public lands access, pipeline safety, reformulated gasoline rules, tax and royalty reform, fuel efficiency standards, and other industry concerns in one bill may not be an efficient way to work the problem.
"Maybe this is the way it should be," said a congressional staff member from an oil-producing state. "More often than not it makes more sense to look at things in a narrow context."
Energy trends
According to a Jan. 24 energy policy analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the shakeup in fuel supplies and prices last year was the fourth significant episode since 1973 to remind Americans how dependent their lifestyle is on inexpensive and plentiful energy.
But it is inaccurate to say the US has no energy policy, says CRS analyst Robert Bamberger of the Resources, Science, and Industry Division.
"Not only does the nation have an energy policy, it has also adopted several policy approaches over the years," he said. "It is apparent from a review of those years since the time of the Arab oil embargo and first oil price shock in 1973 that it is more accurate to see this nearly 30-year period as one of general price and supply stability that is periodically broken with shorter episodes when prices became volatile and supplies of fuel less certain."
Bamberger says it isn't that energy policy has failed to be responsive to crises: "Rather, it is hard in the face of lengthy periods of stability and declining prices for conventional fuels to sustain certain policy courses that will shield the nation from the occasional episodes of instability."
