River status, planned gas project swept up in House energy battle

House Democrats’ worries about energy production may run deep enough to change a scheduled vote on a bill to protect a river.

The latest victim of the toxic atmosphere over energy is a bill by Financial Services panel Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that designates portions of Massachusetts’ Taunton River “wild and scenic.” But the designation would also effectively kill a plan to build an expansive liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at the river’s edge.

{mosads}Frank’s bill disappeared from the floor calendar this week after Republicans attacked it as an example of the Democrats’ aversion to increased domestic energy production.

Democrats say it’s no such thing. They said Frank pulled it because Republicans were spreading misinformation about the bill, and he wouldn’t be in Washington Tuesday to defend it.

“Not only are they not scheduling anything proactive this week,” Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.) said on Monday before criticizing Frank’s bill. “There’s one bill that’s a step backwards that would prevent the siting of an LNG terminal in New England that the industry says could provide up to 35 percent of New Englanders’ home heating supply when it’s brought up on line.

“They’re going to designate [the Taunton River] scenic as if it were some pristine Western Montana beautiful river meandering through the mountains,” Putnam charged.

Frank’s chief of staff, Peter Kovar, acknowledged that Frank is fighting an aggressive Republican Conference, which has been hammering away at Democrats’ resistance to opening up new areas for drilling.

“We had expected the bill to come forward under regular order, but now it’s gotten politicized with Republicans bringing up broader and extraneous energy-related issues,” Kovar said.

Republicans immediately put their own spin on the decision, saying that, for the second time already this week, Democrats had demonstrated that they are in “panic mode” over energy bills, knowing that any floor action could open the majority party up to an embarrassing loss on a vote to broaden domestic production.

Frank’s bill, if it were to pass, could put the final nail in the coffin of the controversial plan to allow Massachusetts-based Weaver’s Cove Energy to build a 73-acre LNG storage and distribution facility on the lower Taunton River. The company said the facility, which would be built on the northern tip of the industrial area, would eventually provide up to 35 percent of the power currently needed to heat New England’s homes and businesses.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the facility, conditional on approval from other regulatory agencies. But the Coast Guard has twice deemed the plan unsafe.

Frank is supportive of other LNG expansion plans, Kovar said, just not Weaver’s specific plan for the Taunton.

And he denied a direct connection between the bill’s removal and concerns about how Democrats plan to navigate energy votes with the looming threat of Republican motions to recommit that would almost certainly include language to increase domestic energy production.

“It’s not a fear,” Kovar said. “For reasons out of our control and because of what the Republicans have said they want to do, it’s now been politicized and made into some national issue. We don’t want that to happen because it’s not a national issue.”

Democratic leadership aides said it was the GOP that was running scared, going to desperate lengths to bring up energy measures even on irrelevant legislation.

“Every prognosticator is saying they are going to lose a lot of seats, so they are grasping at straws,” said Stacey Farnen Bernards, spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). “They’ve sabotaged an issue important to a local area for their national agenda.”

Meanwhile, Democrats have shelved pre-recess plans to bring their signature “use it or lose it” bill back to the floor.

After a recess full of town hall meetings where Democrats touted their “use it or lose it” proposal and their other plans to help lower gas prices, they returned to Washington only to pull their energy bills from consideration on the floor, instead opting to having them tinkered with in various committees.

While Democrats said they were taking a pragmatic approach to handing the numerous bills designed to drive gas prices down, Republicans believe they have the upper hand in the energy debate.

“By overwhelming majorities, the American people understand that more American energy needs to be part of the solution, and the Democratic leadership is defying the will of the American people, and many members of their own caucus, by refusing to work with Republicans to find real solutions on this issue,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “We’ll continue to use every opportunity and every tool we have to highlight the Democratic leadership’s inaction on this issue.”