On energy, bipartisan accord and gridlock, too

Bipartisan backing for Gulf drilling
One can see bipartisan coalitions at work behind two of the current policy ideas.

Now before the Senate is a proposal to open a section of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling. The co-sponsors of the bill are Republicans Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, and Democrats Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota.

Their bill would not allow drilling within 100 miles of the Florida coastline. But nonetheless in Florida there’s staunch bipartisan opposition to the idea of more drilling the Gulf.

Both Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, as well as the state’s Republican governor, Jeb Bush, oppose more drilling in the Gulf.

When it comes to energy, the decisive factor is often not the party label or ideology, but what state or region a member of Congress hails from.

Given regional self-interest, it’s predicable that legislators from Nebraska, Missouri and other corn-growing states are ardent champions of legislation mandating use of ethanol made from corn. Their corn loyalty overrides any party loyalty.

Dispute over ethanol
Senators from coastal states, far from the corn fields, oppose the ethanol requirement, reasoning that it will increase costs for consumers in places such as New York and Philadelphia.

In last summer’s energy debate, Sen. Charles Schumer, D- N.Y. and other ethanol skeptics lost their move to drop the renewable fuels mandate from the energy bill.

Voting against Schumer were 29 Democratic senators, including the ones such as Bayh and Sen. Russ Feingold, D- Wisc., another 2008 presidential contender, who represent corn states. Forty GOP senators also voted against Schumer.

That vote indicates that sometimes bipartisanism doesn’t lead to lower prices, at least in the short run.

Since ethanol can’t be shipped in the already established infrastructure of U.S. pipelines because it too easily absorbs water, it must be moved by truck or rail.

This has added to supply problems and higher costs at the pump for drivers on the East Coast, much as critics last summer contended it would.

On Tuesday, Bush announced steps to ease federal rules on gasoline blends. This should permit refiners to not use ethanol to meet federal clean air standards.

The Renewable Fuels Association, which Bush addressed Tuesday, has argued that other factors — the high cost of crude oil, the political instability in oil-producing countries such as Nigeria — have more to do with gasoline prices than ethanol does.

And Nebraska's Nelson, a supporter of ethanol, said the corn-based fuel "is an easy target" for those unhappy with high prices at the gasoline pump. "The truth of the matter is the refiners and everybody in the oil industry has known about the needs and could have been well prepared for this. Why weren't they prepared to take care of the additive in time to meet the demand?"

Ethanol has caused a boom in Nebraska. When Nelson ended his tenure as governor of Nebraska in 1999, the state had seven ethanol plants. Now there are 12 plants in Nebraska and several more being built. "Nebraska is about to overtake Illinois as the second largest ethanol-producing state," he noted.

If more domestically produced oil and gas is your favored solution to high gasoline prices, you can find a bipartisan alliance for increased drilling in the United States and off its coastline, but also one against such drilling.

Sens. Mark Pryor, D- Ark., and John Warner, R-Va., have teamed up on a bill that would allow more offshore drilling for natural gas to those coastal states that want it.

But on the anti-drilling side, the Chafee-DeWine duo represent the Republican environmentalists’ constituency that opposes drilling in ANWR.

Until the November elections, the arithmetic of the votes looks unlikely to change.