WATCHING WASHINGTON SENATE ENERGY BILL FIGHT LOOMS

With Patrick Crow President Bush pitched into the energy policy debate last week, lending strong support to the Senate energy committee's bill. At a White House pep rally for the bill, Bush told 200 industry representatives and state and local government officials, "We need for Congress to act wisely-and act soon." Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), energy committee chairman, and Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.), the top Republican on the committee, want the Senate to consider the bill in September.

July 29, 1991

3 min read

President Bush pitched into the energy policy debate last week, lending strong support to the Senate energy committee's bill.

At a White House pep rally for the bill, Bush told 200 industry representatives and state and local government officials, "We need for Congress to act wisely-and act soon."

Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), energy committee chairman, and Sen. Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyo.), the top Republican on the committee, want the Senate to consider the bill in September.

But Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Me.) is promising nothing: he has only said he will schedule the bill for floor debate sometime this year.

The legislation will take some time on the floor. It is wide ranging and contains controversial provisions that portend lengthy debate.

WHAT'S AT ISSUE

Sen. Richard Bryan (D-Nev.) and others will try to amend the bill with tougher auto fuel economy standards than the administration and Johnston want.

Several senators also have threatened to filibuster a chapter that would allow exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Coastal Plain.

Lobbyists say the Senate might approve ANWR drilling in a close vote, but say it may lack the votes needed to cut off a filibuster.

The bill's opponents clearly would like to split the bill up and kill the parts they dislike piecemeal.

Johnston has pledged to not give up the ANWR drilling provisions or otherwise dismantle what he considers to be a balanced package of legislation. But he admitted last week, "This is a big bill with a lot of disparate parts, and it's got a long way to go."

Bush also stressed the Senate bill is a package that cannot be broken apart.

Johnston has been making a series of Senate floor speeches to "educate" fellow senators about provisions in the omnibus energy bill and why they are necessary. He is hardly the "junkyard dog" of the Senate. If anything, he always has been too willing to reason and compromise with opponents.

TOUGH FIGHT PROMISED

But in this case, he is clearly signaling he will not abandon the bill without a tough fight.

There are good reasons not to. In contrast with many major energy bills of the past decade (particularly natural gas bills), this legislation is threatened from without rather than from within.

Various oil, gas, coal, and electric energy industry groups support this bill. The opposition is from environmental and conservation groups that Johnston tried but was unable to bring into the compromise legislation.

It is entirely possible for the bill to survive a floor debate largely intact, after a compromise on auto efficiency and an up or down vote on ANWR.

A more subtle problem is the void of any pressing demand for the omnibus legislation.

With the energy problems stemming from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait only a dim memory and with oil and gas at bargain basement prices, there is no perception of any crisis requiring energy policy reform.