Senate leaders offer different views on drilling

Senate leaders sparred Tuesday over the course the chamber should take on energy, with Republicans backing the president’s push for more drilling and Democrats resisting the idea.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday sought to cut off any shift among Senate Democrats toward more oil drilling as an answer to high energy prices, saying a strong majority of the conference remains opposed.

{mosads}Reid also floated the idea of ratcheting up pressure on President Bush in the long-running battle over the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by saying he would consider legislation to force the administration to take oil from the reserve.

In response, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said such a release would be inadequate and impractical, arguing that it would only provide a few days’ worth of oil.

The majority leader offered only the barest of hopes that he would consider production-based GOP amendments to a speculation crackdown bill that the Senate will take up Wednesday. Reid said the Senate will consider such amendments only if Republicans first allow debate on the speculation bill to go forward.

McConnell, for his part, said Republicans would press to link drilling to any speculation bills.

“While we’re all very open to seeing what’s appropriate to do on the speculation issue, let me just give you a quote from the most famous rich Democrat in America, Warren Buffet: ‘It’s not speculation, it’s supply and demand,’ ” McConnell said. “Our point is, we not only want to legislate, we want to pass legislation that meets a threshold of credibility, that would make a difference.”

Senate Republicans are considering the option of holding up a must-pass resolution that keeps the government operating to force Congress to remove a longstanding ban on offshore drilling.

Speaking hours after President Bush’s Tuesday morning press conference, and a day after the administration’s decision Monday to lift the executive ban on offshore drilling, Reid said Democrats remain resistant to lifting the congressional ban. Both bans must be lifted for any drilling to occur.

Repeatedly, Reid emphasized that oil companies must first use the 68 million acres that they have leased but not used before Democrats will consider leasing more. Republicans are pushing a bill that would allow coastal states to decide individually whether they will allow offshore drilling.

“I’m not ruling it out,” Reid said. “What I’m saying is that right now the Democratic caucus does not support this flawed proposal of the president to allow states to determine what can happen on federal lands.”

Reid estimated that as many as 80 percent of Democrats, and maybe more, would vote against any offshore drilling proposal.

Republicans, sensing that the public outcry over soaring gasoline prices gives them an edge in the debate, said Tuesday they would first try to remove that ban through other legislation. They would not rule out, however, holding up the continuing resolution to allow expanded drilling along the coastal United States.

“We are first going to deal with the measure on the floor of the Senate,” McConnell said. “And we’ll take it one step at a time. But you’re right. The current congressional moratorium is enacted on a year-by-year basis.”

On the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Reid blasted Bush for continuing to stockpile oil despite the energy crisis, and reminded reporters that Congress “had to pass a law” earlier this year to prevent the president from continuing such a policy.

When asked if he would consider legislation forcing Bush to release oil from the reserve, Reid said he “would like to do that.”

“We believe that the president should start pulling oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Reid said. “It’s set up for emergencies. If this isn’t an emergency, then one doesn’t exist.”