President Bush said Thursday the “energy bill’s an important issue,” but it was noticeably absent from his short list of legislative priorities for the new Republican-controlled Congress to tackle in the upcoming lame-duck session or early next year.

In his first press briefing since July, the president said the “most important item of unfinished business” for Congress when it returns next week was legislation to create an Office of Homeland Security. “I want it done. It is a…priority.” Other top items include appropriation bills, terrorist insurance and economic reform measures, he told reporters.

There is a “huge laundry list of what people want to get done,” Bush said, but “it’s important for a president to set priorities.”

Bush also commended Harvey Pitt, who resigned late Tuesday as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) amid growing controversy over his handling of the job of the nation’s top financial regulator. Pitt “did some very good things” at the agency, such as getting the financial markets open quickly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, ensuring a greater “corporate responsibility ethos,” disbarring executives for illegal activities and disgorging ill-gotten profits, the president said.

The White House is “confident we [can] find somebody soon” to replace Pitt, he noted. Critics, however, believe that finding a suitable successor and getting him or her confirmed by the Senate could take months.

In the meantime, Pitt’s decision to step down has thrown the SEC into turmoil at a time when it is conducting an unprecedented number of investigations into the accounting and trading practices of major companies, including those in the energy industry, sources said. Some believe the agency’s efforts to weed out the lawbreakers in Corporate America and on Wall Street could be hobbled until the SEC has a new head.

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