Energy Daily GOP Tide Turns Energy Picture... `Redder' Hill May Revive Energy Bill, ANWR, Clear Skies BY CHRIS HOLLY With their sweeping victories in Tuesday's election, congressional Republicans are optimistic about moving long- stalled energy legislation and are likely to make a new effort early next year to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production, GOP aides said Wednesday. While prospects may have improved for moving the energy bill, Republicans also will have a better chance of moving President Bush's long-dormant Clear Skies legislation, which has been stalled in the Senate due to opposition from Democrats and moderate Republicans, energy lobbyists predicted. Having gained up to four new Senate seats, Republicans could hold a 55-44-1 majority in January. At press time, the contest between Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and former Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles (D) had not been decided. By Wednesday afternoon, Murkowski was leading Knowles by about 10,000 votes out of more than 230,000 votes cast, with 98 percent of Alaska's precincts reporting. While the extra muscle does not guarantee that Senate Republicans can achieve the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster, sources on and off Capitol Hill agreed Wednesday that the beefed-up GOP majority will make it easier to move the energy bill. In the House, Republicans will arrive in Washington in January with at least 11 new seats to further strengthen their stranglehold on that body. Several House races remain undecided. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton (R- Texas), who easily won re-election, said repeatedly before the election that he has little interest in turning again to energy legislation, saying that his focus will be on re-authorizing the Clean Air Act and the Telecommunications Act and reforming Medicaid. Barton spokesman Larry Neal said Wednesday that Barton's main priority will be to try to enact the energy bill when the 108th Congress returns for a lame-duck session on November 16. "It's the chairman's intention to spend as much effort as necessary to pass the energy bill during the lame-duck session," Neal said. "That is where his focus is." But Marnie Funk, spokeswoman for Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), said it is unlikely that the Senate will take up the energy bill during the lame-duck session. When the 109th Congress is launched in late January, Funk said she expects a strong push on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and other policy provisions in the energy bill. Domenici and Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, both said before the election that if the GOP were to gain a Senate seat, they would try again on ANWR in January. With the likelihood of gaining four seats, however, a push on ANWR and other policy provisions is almost certain, most likely as part of budget reconciliation legislation, Funk said. "Oil prices remain high, gasoline prices remain high and coal is selling at twice what it was a year ago in the wholesale market," Funk said. "I don't think those signals are going away, so I think it is very likely you will see a serious move on ANWR in the budget reconciliation process. I see strong momentum on energy legislation in the Senate next year." A veteran Republican lobbyist for the electric utility industry cautioned that one of the key provisions that helped sink the energy bill in the Senate-a provision to waive liability for producers of methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline additive that has leaked into underground drinking water supplies-remains controversial. House leaders such as Barton and Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R- Texas), refused to remove the MTBE provision from the legislation, leading to a stalemate within the Republican party on the bill. But some sources have suggested that the need to reauthorize the Clean Air Act could provide an opportunity for Republicans to break the MTBE impasse. "Barton could address the MTBE issue in the Clean Air Act reauthorization bill, removing a key impediment to the energy bill," the GOP lobbyist said. "I've been on my soapbox for some time saying that MTBE is an environmental issue, not an energy issue, since the reason it came to market was that the [1990 Clean Air Act Amendments] created a new reformulated gasoline program." The energy bill's electricity title remains relatively less controversial than other provisions in the bill. Broad bipartisan support exists for making now-voluntary rules for maintaining grid reliability mandatory and enforceable. Republicans also are keen to repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act, and their new majorities may allow them to achieve that long-held goal. And with three new GOP senators from southern states, that region's concerns about restructuring the electric industry could lead lawmakers to tinker with the electricity compromise engineered in 2002 by Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), then-chairman of the House energy panel. A Democratic utility lobbyist conceded that Republicans will feel emboldened by their new majority to try again to open ANWR and enact other long-sought energy provisions such as new funding for clean coal technology, incentives for building a new generation of nuclear power plants and the removal of constraints on domestic oil and natural gas production. But this lobbyist said it is even more likely that the Republicans will make a concerted push to enact Bush's Clear Skies legislation, which calls for roughly 70 percent reductions in sulfur dioxide, mercury and nitrogen oxides. "I think you'll see them come right out of the gate with Clear Skies and mount a big push on that," the Democratic lobbyists said. "I think they'll say this is our baby and this is the time." How successful Republicans will be, of course, depends in large part on how Democrats react to their crushing defeat, which saw Bush recapture the White House after a bitterly fought, divisive campaign. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]