Senate Dems fight for energy bill amid intra-party, GOP concerns

Senate Democrats yesterday were scrambling to prevent the sweeping energy overhaul bill, a top domestic priority, from crumbling amid growing regional divisions within their party and Republican concerns.

“The moment of truth on this energy bill is coming very shortly,” Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said.

{mosads}Crucial test votes come today, when the Democrats will try to end debate on the bill, which would require automobiles to be more efficient, prohibit price-gouging, encourage conservation in federal buildings, ramp up the country’s use of biofuels and expand federal research on sequestering carbon dioxide underground. The Senate today also will try to end debate on a $32 billion energy tax package for renewable energy, which would be offset by new taxes imposed on oil and gas production.

The prospects are murky, and several presidential candidates, including Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.), planned to be in Washington to help Democrats push through one of their campaign promises on their “Six for ’06” agenda.

“It’s an 18-wheeler, fully loaded and it’s started blowing tires,” Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) said of the bill’s chances. “It’s getting pretty heavy.”

Bill supporters yesterday were working to limit several disputes: with lawmakers from auto-producing states regarding the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) provisions in the bill; with Southern senators over an amendment that would require utilities to generate electricity from renewable fuels; and between Republicans and Democrats over the size and scope of the tax package.

Gearing up for the fallout of a possible failure to pass an energy bill, Republicans and Democrats traded sharp barbs yesterday.

“What we got here is a greenie bill, and we’re going to waste money on things that are not going to work,” Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said. “I think the agitation level is getting pretty high.”

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) called the tax plan “a poison pill.”

Democrats, who said Republicans were aligning themselves with Big Oil at the expense of consumers, said the tax package was aimed at raising money from oil companies making record profits to pay for clean sources of energy.

“These guys made whatever record profits in the hundreds of billions, so taking 24 of their incentives out that were given to them and putting them towards green technology — I think there’ll be a lot of support for that,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash) said.

Moving to tamp down a rebellion from Southern senators, Energy Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) was in negotiations through the day to alter his amendment to create a “renewable portfolio standard” that would have mandated utilities to generate 15 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020. Southern senators argue their utilities do not have enough renewable resources, such as wind power, to meet the requirements of the plan.

In response, Bingaman floated a plan to require 11 percent of the electricity to come from renewables and the other four percent to come from efficiency requirements, but it’s not clear whether that will win over skeptics.

“I think it’s in trouble,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said of the bill’s chances if the Bingaman amendment were tacked onto it.

The Senate had not voted on the amendment as of press time.

Also, Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) were negotiating to alter Feinstein’s CAFE proposal, which is in the underlying bill. That measure would boost efficiency standards to 35 miles per gallon for cars and light trucks by 2020, and would mandate an increase by 4 percent per year until 2030. Levin and other auto-producing members want the annual increase to be dropped, and Stevens wants the timeframe altered.

The White House has vowed to veto the bill over price-gouging language that Cantwell has authored, and she and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) are considering whether to move that separately.