Nov 26 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - John Fleck Albuquerque Journal, N.M.

Oil is tickling $100 a barrel, gasoline has parked itself above $3 a gallon, the latest polls show the public is impatient for action on climate change, and Jeff Bingaman sounds frustrated.

If anyone is in a position to do something about the issues, it would seem to be Bingaman, the New Mexico Democrat who chairs the Senate Energy Committee.

But on energy and the related problem of climate change, Bingaman said in a recent interview, the American public is out ahead of Congress.

Polls suggest the public wants much more aggressive efforts to wean ourselves off foreign oil and shift to more renewable energy, according to Bingaman.

For example, a University of Maryland poll published earlier this month found 74 percent of people in the United States are willing to support a tax on fossil fuels if the money is used to promote efficiency or new fuel sources.

But efforts to pass energy legislation this year are entangled in complex politics.

Bingaman, for example, favors tax incentives to support renewable energy development. But opponents successfully blocked them in the Senate energy bill. A filibuster also blocked a proposal in the Senate to increase the requirement for electricity from renewable sources.

The Senate favors tightening government-imposed mileage standards for U.S. cars. The House does not.

And the Bush administration has opposed climate change legislation, an issue closely linked to energy policy.

"I think everything you do on energy relates to climate change," Bingaman said.

Both the House and Senate have passed energy bills. But they remain far apart on details, and time is running out for the current session.

Bingaman said he is "optimistic" members of the House and Senate will be able to cobble together a deal when they return in December. But details of what that bill might look like remain to be seen.

Meanwhile, legislation to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions is running down a separate congressional track, and experts say it is unclear whether any serious climate bill will pass until the Bush administration leaves office in 2009.

That leaves the House and Senate energy bills as the main opportunity to address the issues. Among possibilities on the table:

Increased fuel economy standards, requiring the average vehicle to get 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

A requirement for increased use of biofuels in gasoline and home heating oil.

Tax credits for renewable energy, offset by a repeal of similar incentives for oil and gas production.

A mandate that 15 percent of electricity be from renewable sources by 2020.

In the long run, Bingaman said he believes the approach he advocates -- tougher automobile fuel standards, an energy efficiency push and tax incentives to encourage use of renewable energy -- will lower U.S. energy costs.

But for now, Bingaman said, there is little Congress and the federal government can do about the price you pay for gasoline.

"I don't think there's any way to argue that what we do is going to have an impact in the short term," Bingaman said. "It will hopefully change the trend lines so that the cost of energy two years, three years, five years, 10 years from now is less."

Industry, led by the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have begun a major publicity campaign arguing that such measures would hurt the U.S. economy, driving jobs overseas.

Environmental groups are pushing from the opposite direction, arguing in a publicity campaign that Congress hasn't done enough to tame our use of fossil fuels and reduce emissions of energy-related greenhouse gases.

The problem Congress faces is that the public supports doing something, but there are few achievable policy options to implement what the polls say people want, said Roger Pielke Jr., a University of Colorado political scientist.

"The politics is ahead of the policy," Pielke said.

In the meantime, especially on the climate change side of the energy policy equation, states like New Mexico are responding to the lack of federal action by doing their own thing. Working singly and in groups, they are trying to find ways to shift energy use and limit greenhouse gas emissions from the bottom up.

Pielke praised the statebased efforts. "Those offer the greatest chance for new thinking," he said.