WASHINGTON - The Senate Energy Committee on Friday will unveil an energy bill that would boost US production of coal and nuclear energy, although more contentious measures on oil, natural gas and automobile fuel efficiency are still being drafted, committee leaders said on Thursday.
The House of Representatives last month approved its version of energy legislation. President Bush wants Congress to send him a final energy package by late summer.
Republican and Democratic members of the Senate energy panel have been meeting privately for months to draft a bill. On Friday, the committee will release a portion of its energy bill related to coal, electricity, hydrogen and certain nuclear power issues that have been generally agreed upon.
The full committee will meet next Tuesday through Thursday to fine tune and vote on those provisions in the energy bill.
However, other contentious provisions in the bill relating to renewable energy, oil and natural gas matters, and motor fuel and vehicle issues are still being worked on by congressional staff.
That remaining bill language is scheduled to be voted on by the committee during the week of May 23. If that schedule is kept, the entire energy bill could be sent to the Senate floor for debate before the Memorial Day holiday recess at the end of May.
The Republican chairman of the Senate's energy committee, Pete Domenici, and the panel's top Democrat, Jeff Bingaman -- both from New Mexico -- expressed confidence the chamber would complete an energy bill this year, after several years of failed efforts.
"Both of us recognize that America faces critical energy needs, and we both know that America must update its laws to meet those needs," Bingaman said in a statement.
"We have sought to increase and diversify our energy supply while employing new technologies to make coal cleaner, electricity more reliable and affordable and nuclear energy more abundant," Domenici said.
The Senate bill will not contain language in the House legislation that would open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, because leaders have expressed a preference to include that in annual budget legislation.
Domenici has also refused to include in the energy bill any protection from lawsuits for oil companies that make the water-polluting gasoline additive MTBE.
Last year's energy bill died in Congress largely because House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas insisted that an energy bill must shield the industry from product liability lawsuits for MTBE and give them some $2 billion in transition costs to make other products.
Those two major differences will have to be settled by a joint Senate-House conference committee that will hammer out the language for a final energy package.
Story by Tom Doggett
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
