In Wake Of Bush Comments, Everyone's Got A Proposal

Wed. Apr. 30, 2008


President Bush's Tuesday comments on the economy opened the floodgates on Capitol Hill as lawmakers of all stripes spoke of ways to address high energy and food prices.

Senate Democrats are compiling a gas-price package that they hope to unveil by the end of the week. It was a main topic at their weekly policy lunch Tuesday, though senators leaving the lunch said it wasn't finished.

"We just explored it; I don't think there were any decisions; there were lots of options," Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said.

Bush and Senate GOP leaders called on Democrats to back more drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore. But those solutions are as untenable politically as Democrats seeking to pay for a gas tax "holiday" this summer by repealing billions in tax incentives for oil and gas companies.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he has veto-proof support for his bill to suspend deposits into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve if the price of crude oil remains above $75 a barrel. Dorgan plans to offer the bill as an amendment to FAA legislation on the floor this week and has talked about it as an amendment to the next Iraq supplemental and as part of the Democrats' gas-tax plan.

He cites support of all 51 Senate Democrats, who signed a letter espousing the idea to Bush last month, and 15 Republicans who wrote Bush Tuesday asking for an immediate suspension of deposits in the reserve.

The Republicans' request did not include specific price criteria. "I think maybe a pause now, and then look at it in a month or two would be a good thing to do," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who led Tuesday's letter to Bush.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., Monday introduced a bill to halt deposits in the reserve when the average nationwide gas price is over $2.50 a gallon and diesel fuel exceeds $2.75 a gallon. Sen. Christopher (Kit) Bond, R-Mo., is the only co-sponsor. Hutchison is reviewing the Barrasso bill, her spokesman said.

To address concern over global food shortages and high food prices, Hutchison will soon offer a bill to freeze a mandate to increase corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels in December's energy legislation. Her bill would freeze the 2008 mandate requiring the production of 9 billion gallons. The energy act requires 15 billion gallons by 2015 and 36 billion gallons by 2022. Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry has requested a waiver from the mandate.

Environment and Public Works ranking member James Inhofe, who supports Hutchison's bill and opposed the mandate from the beginning, said, "Once again, we are reminded how restrictive government mandates and ill-advised bureaucratic meddling produce unintended consequences."

Some blame the high cost of commodities on record high oil and gas prices instead of an increasing amount of corn used to produce ethanol and meet congressional mandates. "It's been a scapegoat," Dorgan said.

Several senators in both parties -- including Energy and Natural Resources ranking member Pete Domenici and Mary Landrieu, D-La. -- said they were not supporting a freeze in the ethanol mandate just yet but want the impact of the mandate explored further. "I wouldn't mind slowing it down, but I need to know more," Domenici said.

Lawmakers in both parties have also pushed for faster action to produce plant-based cellulosic ethanol as a way to draw down the demand for corn-based ethanol.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is touting a new five-year "Manhattan Project" for "clean energy independence" to address gas prices, electricity, climate change, air quality and reducing U.S. oil imports. Alexander plans to detail the plan in a May 9 speech he will give at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- one of the sites used to develop the atomic bomb.

by Darren Goode

Wed. Apr. 30, 2008