While the energy industry generally applauded the re-election of President Bush, seeing it as favorable for energy projects, large and small, others focused more on Capitol Hill, pointing to the increased majorities racked up for Republicans in both the Senate and House of Representatives, bolstering the chances that comprehensive energy legislation will get through Congress next year.

With the GOP firmly entrenched in both houses, the broad energy bill has a “better chance” of being passed by the Senate in the next legislative year, but “don’t assume that all the problems will go away,” said Martin Edwards, vice president of legislative affairs for the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America (INGAA).

The “fault lines tend to run more regionally than partisan” when it comes to the energy bill, which has been stuck in the Senate since the start of the year, he noted. Edwards pointed out that six Senate Republicans, mostly from the Northeast, joined the Democratic effort to block a vote on the measure this year.

Nevertheless, he believes a second Bush term augurs well for energy. “I think with Bush being re-elected, it frees up the administration to be more aggressive in pursuing energy legislation in the next Congress,” he said, adding that the administration was timid on the issue during the campaign.

Boston-based consulting firm ESAI told clients it believes the major tenets of the Energy Bill of 2005 will be similar to the current bill, “meaning it will include repeal of the Public Utilities Holding Company Act, new incentives for the construction of clean coal electric generation facilities, natural gas pipelines and high voltage electric transmission lines, enhanced access to federal lands for oil and gas exploration, and measures to increase the use of ethanol and limit the liabilities of MTBE producers. Difficult as these measures will be to enact, ESAI believes the effects, if any, of these measures is incremental, and that there is nothing in this bill that will revolutionize the American energy industry or its markets.”

“I think it’s important for the administration and Congress to enact energy legislation fairly quickly in the new Congress,” Edwards told NGI. “Don’t let it drag on,” as it has in previous years, he said.

The White House occupant “is not the pivotal issue” when it comes to passing energy legislation, countered Charles Swab analyst Christine Tezak. The “incredibly thinly divided Senate” is the key factor.

“It certainly will be difficult to get [an energy bill] passed whoever is president,” she said prior to Bush’s win on Tuesday. Tezak doubts there will be any action on the energy bill when Congress returns for a lame-duck session later this month. She believes Congress will take up an energy measure next year “only if consumers start sending messages to their congressmen that they are truly unhappy with energy prices,” and it becomes a “front page issue” in newspapers nationwide.

“The next four years will likely be a challenging time for all energy consumers, given a continuing tight market for natural gas and other fuels,” said Joseph Blount, chairman of the Natural Gas Supply Association. He called for Bush and Congress to address energy issues head on in the next legislative session.

The American Gas Association (AGA) called on Bush to provide “strong leadership” to ensure sufficient energy resources, including natural gas. While Congress approved legislation this year supporting the construction of an Alaskan gas pipeline, “much remains to be done,” said AGA President David Parker. “Critical issues such as natural gas supply, rising customer demand for energy, economic growth and national security will be in play in Congress and many states next year.”

The Republicans picked up a total of four additional seats in the Senate from the Democrats, Edwards noted. This gives the GOP about a 55-seat majority in the next Senate, with Democrats holding 44 seats. Republicans picked up seats in South Dakota, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida, while Democrats stripped the Republicans of two seats in Illinois and Colorado.

Although Republicans will enjoy a comfortable margin in the Senate, it’s still short of the 60 votes needed to head off any filibusters by Democrats in the Senate.

In the House, the Republicans picked up about three additional seats, bringing their majority to 230 in the new Congress, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Democrats, on the other hand, lost five seats, putting their total at 200.

The biggest upset of Tuesday night was in South Dakota, where Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle, Senate minority leader who has served in Congress for 26 years, lost to Republican challenger John R. Thune by a margin of about 4,500 votes. It was the first time that a senator in a leadership position has been defeated in 52 years, according to INGAA’s Edwards. It’s expected that Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-NV) will succeed Daschle as the leading Democrat in the Senate.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who was in an extremely tight race with former Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles (Democrat), won that state, silencing critics who claimed that she only got the job because of her father, Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski and former senator. Murkowski is the first woman ever elected to Alaska’s congressional delegation, according to Edwards. Murkowski’s victory “to me is more surprising” than the defeat of Daschle, he said.

Louisiana voters last Tuesday elected their first GOP senator — David Vitter — since Reconstruction, Edwards noted. Vitter will succeed Sen. John Breaux, a Democrat who is leaving the Senate at the end of this year. Also noteworthy was the defeat of Rep. Philip Crane of Illinois, the longest serving GOP member of the House (about 35 years), to businesswoman Melissa Bean, a Democrat.

On the international front, ESAI said it believed stepped-up efforts by the administration to re-stabilize Iraq should help lower crude oil prices, “but the absence of any significant fuel conservation efforts will mean an increased need for gasoline imports, and given the increasingly difficult blends of gasoline required by state fuel standards, the cost of those imports is likely to increase. Further, the U.S. dependence on imported gas will make the U.S. market as sensitive to changes in the global gas market as it is to changes in the global oil market.”

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