Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) in a letter to the White House Wednesday outlined “13 specific steps” that President Bush could take using his existing authority to cut high-flying prices for natural gas and gasoline.

Bingaman’s recommendations led to a fiery exchange on the Senate floor earlier this week with New Mexico’s Republican lawmaker, Sen. Pete Domenici, who insisted that lowering energy prices was the responsibility of Congress, not the Bush administration. He sharply criticized Bingaman and other Senate Democrats for complaining about energy prices, but refusing to agree to limit the number of amendments to be offered to the pared-down energy bill (S. 2095), which has prevented the measure from going to the Senate floor this session.

Domenici, whose job is to get an energy bill through the Senate, made clear his frustration with Bingaman and other Senate Democrats to energy reporters in a teleconference Thursday afternoon. “If I sound somewhat upset, I am,” he said, referring to what he sees as deliberate attempts by Democrats to sabotage broad energy legislation this year. Bingaman’s letter to Bush is part of the Democratic strategy to block the bill, Domenici contends.

In his memo to the White House, Bingaman, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, suggested that the president do four things to trim natural gas prices:

As for relieving pressure on gasoline prices, Bingaman recommended that the Bush administration:

To ensure energy price relief in the longer term, Bingaman proposed that the Bush administration:

But Domenici has not given up on his pared-down energy bill as the best way to boost supply and cut high prices for energy, such as natural gas, which he estimated have cost consumers an additional $130 billion over four years. “This bill will pass with ease if we can get it to the floor and get the Democrats to stop filibustering,” he told reporters. “The issue is how long do they [Senate Democrats] insist this bill remain on the floor for them to fool around with it.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) would take the bill up if Democrats would agree to limit their amendments to 10 or so, according to Domenici. In the meantime, “he doesn’t want to take up a bill when he has no idea how much longer it will take.” Frist “is stuck in the mud of this place which doesn’t give him very much time for anything else,” he said.

Domenici said the bill would “absolutely” happen if amendments were limited to 10 or 15.

However, even with a finite number of amendments, Domenici seemed to dodge questions about whether Republicans have the 60 votes required to bring the energy bill to the floor for consideration.

He said he would not support any amendment that would try to re-insert into the bill a liability waiver for the producers of the gasoline additive, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). Asked how he then would reconcile the Senate bill with the House energy measure, which has a waiver for MTBE producers, Domenici responded “I believe if this bill passes there will be some negotiations in the House that could [get this] resolved.”

Reacting to MidAmerican Energy Holdings’ withdrawal of its application for an Alaska pipeline Thursday, he noted, “I have no fears that there will be [other] companies under this bill that will bring us natural gas from Alaska.”

He said MidAmerican’s announcement was understandable. “I don’t know how I’d feel if I were a company that had to wait this long when the option is LNG,” but he also indicated it could be a “negotiating tactic” with the state of Alaska (see related story).

Domenici further disputed Bingaman’s estimate for the current backlog of permits and applications at Interior’s BLM — 2,100. The BLM on Thursday told the Senate Energy Committee that it wiped out 1,400 permits from the backlog of 2,100, he noted. “That’s a pretty good chunk.”

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