Rep. W.J. “Billy” Tauzin (R-LA), who is leading the effort to reconcile the Senate and House energy bills, said Tuesday congressional negotiators expect to issue a conference report on omnibus energy legislation within two weeks. But the chief Senate negotiator, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), said while he hoped the conference report can be finished before Congress recesses next month, “I don’t want to be held to two weeks.”

“Yes…absolutely,” said Tauzin of the two-week deadline, adding that the “House and Senate will have a chance to vote on [it]” this year. “I suspect what we’re going to do is produce a bill that 60 or more senators will be able to approve. If that’s true, we’re going to have [an energy] bill this year,” he told reporters at the “Energy Summit 2002” sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC. The final bill will either be a “very good bill or a great bill.”

He noted the Bush administration has made this a priority. “Everything we’ve heard…coming out of the White House is that they have elevated the completion of this conference and the signing of an energy bill…as part of the total effort to secure this country before we [Congress] go home for elections.”

Speaking to policymakers and energy executives, Tauzin said that “one by one we’re going through these issues and [we’re] closing them out.” He noted some “tough” issues still face House and Senate negotiators: drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), the electricity title, renewable fuel portfolio standards and climate change. “I know I’ve got to compromise [on these], but the Senate needs to compromise too,” he said. Conferees will take up these issues when they resume work on Wednesday.

Contrary to speculation, Bingaman said the conference report will be comprehensive in scope. “I think we’re trying to get a comprehensive energy bill. That was the way we started out, and I think that’s still our intent.”

Negotiators from the House side, which approved ANWR as part of its energy bill, “[are] going to make the Senate an offer they can’t refuse” this week to win Senate backing for drilling in the Arctic refuge, Tauzin said. “We understand the Senate has big concerns [about ANWR] as did many House members who voted against our proposal” to open up the refuge to exploration and production. But “we’re at a point now I think where we can make some serious contributions to those concerns and to make them offers that may be the best environmental offer they ever received in return for [the] ability to go out and produce some of that oil.”

Tauzin declined to give any details about the House proposal. “It is something we believe the White House can accept…We just hope it’s something the Senate can accept.”

Senate negotiators, who oppose opening ANWR to drilling, haven’t seen the House proposal yet, said Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He told “Energy Summit” attendees that the Senate favors initiatives to stimulate domestic oil and gas production, but in “less controversial areas” than ANWR. He declined to say whether the Senate might back ANWR in exchange for a favorable vote by the House on climate change.

President Bush has made no secret that he would prefer an energy bill with ANWR included. However, “he may get a bill that contains [only] part of which he wants,” Bingaman said.

A proposal to build a major natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Lower 48 states “is still on the table,” Tauzin noted. He said he was working with Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and Rep. Don Young (R-AK) to “come up with a position that we can…offer the administration.” He indicated he wasn’t certain whether the proposal would offer the previously proposed $10 billion in loan guarantees to encourage construction of the Alaska pipeline.

On the power side, Tauzin said the Senate has not submitted yet a counteroffer to a wide-ranging House electricity proposal, crafted by Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and endorsed by Tauzin. House conferees approved the Barton-Tauzin measure last week. “We spent the weekend literally going over the differences between the House and Senate [on this issue]…and finding out where the pressure points are” and where the “complementary parts” are as well.

Bingaman indicated the Senate “by and large” stands behind the electricity title in its energy bill, but he said “we’re certainly looking seriously at what they’re proposing and hope there are some things we can agree to.” He noted the Senate was drafting a counteroffer to the House electric measure. “We hope we can get agreement among Senate conferees this week, but we don’t know for sure.”

Tauzin appeared optimistic that Senate and House conferees would wrap up the electricity title of the energy bill this week.

Bingaman dismissed speculation that conferees were eyeing a proposal to slow down FERC’s proposed standard market design (SMD). “There’s nothing in what they’ve [House conferees] sent us that relates to that, and there’s nothing in our [Senate] bill that relates to that,” he said. “But there is the provision in the energy and water appropriations bill [to that effect], which I think is something that probably has strong support both in the House and Senate.”

The conference committee is split down the middle over a key issue of whether to grant FERC broad authority to review electric mergers. “It’s one of those sticky items that’s in the electricity title,” said Tauzin. He noted the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission already have the authority to review energy mergers. “To do a thorough review at FERC [or the SEC] is the kind of government redundancy and bureaucracy that I ran against in 1980,” he told reporters.

“I don’t see anything wrong in involving FERC in the [merger review] process because they know a lot about the issues. But giving them full operational, expanded merger review is something I hope we can avoid.”

Bingaman, however, favors expanded merger review for FERC. “I think…an essential tradeoff in our bill was if we’re going to repeal PUHCA [Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935], we needed to have additional merger authority at FERC…That’s still my strong view.”

Tauzin said he had “great optimism” the House and Senate tax-writing committees will be able to “resolve the differences” in the tax parts of the two energy bills with two days of “real hard work.” But Bingaman wasn’t quite as optimistic. “There’s going to have to be a lot of negotiating between the two tax-writing committees, and that hasn’t happened yet.”

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