05-20-2000

ENERGY: Senate GOP Seeks Votes at the Pump

Just weeks after the Senate drilled his bid to cut gasoline taxes,
Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., on May 16 unveiled another bill
designed to counter rising gas prices and mounting heating bills. The
far-reaching legislation-introduced by Lott, Energy and Natural Resources
Committee Chairman Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, and other Senate
Republicans-is intended to give the U.S. government more authority over
domestic fuel prices. It would stimulate domestic production, open up vast
new tracts of land to oil drilling, promote energy efficiency, and boost
the consumption of renewable fuel. The bill was generated by a GOP task
force intent on finding a long-term solution to this winter's price spike.
The gas-tax repeal, which Democrats and a handful of Republicans helped
defeat in April, was Lott's short-term fix. The latest bill could face a
similar fate. Earlier this year, a group of Northeastern Republicans
joined Democrats to block legislation that would have opened up new lands
to oil drilling. And some western Republicans oppose a provision to create
a heating oil reserve in New England. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho,
acknowledged that major sections may need to be stripped in order to get
the bill through the Senate.


Brody Mullins/CongressDaily

National Journal