Energy mega-bill gains momentum

Beginning Tuesday and continuing through June, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold four hearings on a slew of bills designed to improve energy supply, efficiency, infrastructure and accountability of federal agencies. The House Energy and Commerce Committee also will hold several hearings and has been churning out discussion drafts on legislation on the permitting of hydropower and natural gas pipelines.

The topics aren’t flashy, but they’re potentially significant. And the decision to eschew partisan flash points such as the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline and, for now, whether to end the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports, was designed to avoid political land mines.

So far, lobbyists, think tank experts and former Capitol Hill aides have been impressed by the strategy being led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, the energy committee chairwoman, to pass the first broad energy bill since Congress approved the Energy Independence and Security Act in 2007. They said her decision to work in advance with top committee Democrat Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington could produce legislation that receives President Obama’s signature.

“What Sen. Murkowski along with Sen. Cantwell really have laid out is an impressive and potentially bipartisan path on energy,” Joshua Freed, vice president of clean energy with nonpartisan think tank Third Way, told the Washington Examiner. “There’s pent-up demand on any number of energy issues and a lot of the issues that need to be dealt with are not inherently partisan in nature.”

That’s if the process goes as Murkowski and Cantwell have planned. That’s far from certain.

“Hope springs eternal. One thing it has going for it is that Keystone’s not hanging over its head anymore,” Jim Manley, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told the Examiner. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other equally controversial measures that members might want to offer, such as the export of oil.”

The trove of bills Murkowski gave the Government Publishing Office late last week are fairly technical but could force big changes in U.S. energy policy. One would free up export of “condensate,” a form of light oil, in a move that would chip away at the crude export ban. Another would require adjustments in electricity markets to limit distortions from subsidies. One would devote funding to developing methane hydrates, which is natural gas trapped in ice buried deep below water.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton has said he would keep Keystone XL off the House version and he is silent on crude oil exports, which is a touchy issue for even some Republicans. This is the Michigan Republican’s last term as panel chairman, who, at least until the Tea Party wave in 2010, was considered moderate on energy and climate issues.

“It’s pretty exciting. We are going to talk about and vote on a bunch of energy issues. It’s democracy. I’m excited,” said Mike McKenna, a GOP strategist who lobbies on behalf of energy companies and utilities.

Because the bills are technical, Manley said there’s not much risk in the 2016 presidential election sidetracking the effort as long as it doesn’t become littered with hot-button issues. But that doesn’t mean lawmakers have unlimited time.

“We’re getting into appropriation season, and if the Republicans are in fact serious about dealing with them it’s going to crowd out an awful lot of stuff,” Manley said.

There also are other members and desires to consider, which could derail the process. Murkowski said she has been talking to lawmakers both inside and outside her committee to secure votes, since she will need support from 60 senators to hold a vote.

“All of us are working on stuff that’s relevant to energy,” she told reporters last week. “I make no secret of the fact that I am trying to build up, build out, an energy package.”

But in the House, Republicans have trended more conservative than their upper chamber colleagues for years. And the House panel has jurisdiction over Environmental Protection Agency regulations on power plants. Any measure blocking environmental policies, such as proposed carbon emissions limits on power plants, would draw a veto from President Obama.

“If this bill manages to get out of the Senate it’s going to put a lot of pressure on the House to do it in a similar way,” said Manley, who now directs the communications practice at Quinn Gillespie and Associates.

Upton has emphasized the need to update the nation’s pipeline infrastructure, which is also a top issue for Murkowski, Republicans and centrist Democrats. Liberal Democrats, though, might take issue with pipeline permitting measures if they defang environmental regulations and reviews.

Democrats also might push for renewable energy policies loathsome to Republicans or seek to limit development and export of fossil fuels. For example, Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, last week introduced a bill that would limit natural gas exports. Some Democrats contend sending too much fuel abroad would raise domestic prices.

“The tricky part is what happens on the floor. The legislation that emerges from committee will probably be modest. But some of the amendments on the floor will be aggressive. That means that some chunk of senators will be unhappy at the end of the day,” McKenna said.

Whether Cantwell and other Democrats remain engaged if a typical fossil-fuel-versus-renewable-energy debate emerges, as is often the case, is an open question, Freed said.

“There are always going to be some disagreements. But the question is are they going to be disagreements that evolve in such a way where you can find solutions, or do they start out as such high walls that you can’t get anywhere? At this point none of those walls have been identified or been built,” said Freed, a former aide for House Energy and Commerce Committee member Diana DeGette, D-Colo.