Washington (Platts)--27Jun2008

Political gridlock is delaying a national response to record oil prices,
US Senators Olympia Snowe of Maine and Ben Nelson of Nebraska said Friday,
calling on Senate leaders to set up a summit with the Bush administration to
develop a consensus on the issue.

In a letter Friday to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority
Leader Mitch McConnell, Snowe, a Republican, and Nelson, a Democrat, said a
"partisan stalemate" between Congress and the Bush administration is hindering
a national response to soaring gasoline and crude oil prices.

NYMEX crude futures Friday closed at a record $140.21/barrel after
climbing to a new intraday record $142.99/b. On Thursday, the Dow Jones
Industrial Average fell more than 350 points to close at a two-year low on
concerns that soaring oil prices may spark inflation and slow the economy even
further.

"Although both parties have outlined energy policies, neither has been
able to achieve the bipartisan consensus necessary to forge a workable
solution," Snowe and Nelson wrote to the Senate party leadership. "The
partisan stalemate on energy issues must stop and we believe it will require
good-faith efforts from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

"Accordingly, we are writing to ask that you consider moving forward with
a national summit with the President to develop a consensus energy proposal
that addresses this crisis."

While both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate agreed
overwhelmingly last month to halt the Bush administration's filling of the
Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a symbolic move which had little effect on crude
oil prices, most subsequent legislative moves thus far have devolved into
party-line battles, with Republicans pressing Democrats for a re-vote on
opening the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve and the Outer Continental Shelf
to more oil drilling.

Conversely, Democrats have attacked Republicans for siding with so-called
"Big Oil" for calling for more domestic drilling.

On Thursday, however, the US House overwhelmingly voted to urge the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use its emergency powers to "eliminate
excessive speculation, price distortion, sudden or unreasonable fluctuations
or unwarranted changes in price or other unlawful activity."

Still, a move Thursday in the House to strip oil leases from companies
who don't produce on them, the so-called "use-it-or-lose-it:" rule, failed on
a mainly party-line vote, while House Democrats abruptly canceled an
appropriations bill hearing Thursday when the Appropriations Committee panel's
top Republican made a bid to bring the offshore issue up for a vote.

--Daniel Goldstein, daniel_goldstein@platts.com