WATCHING WASHINGTON ENERGY BILL POSTMORTEM

With Patrick Crow The omnibus energy bill, which survived 6 months of legislative limbo only to be defeated in a procedural vote, once again has slipped into the Senate's nether world. Supporters withdrew the package from the Senate floor when they failed to muster the 60 votes required to shut off a filibuster (OGJ, Nov. 11, p. 17). Since then, the Senate has turned to other bills it wants to pass before a late November recess. A revival of the energy bill will have to wait until the

Nov. 18, 1991

3 min read

The omnibus energy bill, which survived 6 months of legislative limbo only to be defeated in a procedural vote, once again has slipped into the Senate's nether world.

Supporters withdrew the package from the Senate floor when they failed to muster the 60 votes required to shut off a filibuster (OGJ, Nov. 11, p. 17).

Since then, the Senate has turned to other bills it wants to pass before a late November recess. A revival of the energy bill will have to wait until the Senate reconvenes in January.

NO ALTERNATIVE READY

When the cloture vote failed, senators who had fought the bill, largely because it would allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's Coastal Plain, pledged to work promptly with energy committee chairman Bennett Johnston (D-La.) to forge a replacement. But they made it clear that measure must contain neither ANWR drilling nor mild measures to increase the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for new car fleets.

Some ideas have been floated, but senators have held no formal talks.

The energy bill's defeat caught everyone unprepared. Opponents didn't have alternatives ready. And a senator's aid noted the energy committee "had a Plan A, which called for passage of the full bill. But they didn't have a Plan B to fall back to."

Nevertheless, several points have become clear:

Senators who opposed the bill will find it harder to compromise on a replacement than they thought because they opposed different chapters of the original bill to varying degrees.
Johnston has offered to compromise on a truncated bill but appears unwilling to take the first step. Stung by the Senate's rejection of his bill, he thinks the next move is up to the other side.
The Bush administration was slow to accept reality, entertaining hopes for another cloture vote. But now Department of Energy officials are shifting to the viewpoint that an energy bill without ANWR is better than no energy bill at all.

BERGMAN'S WARNING

Meanwhile, Elihu Bergman, executive director of Americans for Energy Independence, lamented the bill's defeat:

"The most comprehensive energy policy legislation since the late 1970s has been jeopardized-and perhaps defeated-by ideological crossfire. The fate of the bill is depressing because it reflects a brand of single issue killer politics that too frequently produces legislative gridlock."

He told the fall meeting of the National Ocean Industries Association the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war was the nation's last chance to enact any sort of comprehensive energy legislation.

"Without energy policy," he said, "our economic development and industrial progress could be jeopardized by an energy supply/demand pattern that has been authoritatively projected for the next 20 years.

"Unless we take corrective initiatives, it is a pattern in which our energy choices will be increasingly limited and costly because we have become too reliant on foreign suppliers and have failed to create the domestic building blocks for future energy requirements that are visible now."