The policy portion of the broad energy bill may have seen the last of the Senate floor this year, as senators on Thursday voted not to invoke cloture on an amendment that sought to piggyback energy policy initiatives to unrelated legislation cutting Internet access taxes.

“This may be the last chance you [senators] get” this session to vote on energy policy legislation, warned Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) on the Senate floor, just prior to the vote opposing cloture. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) echoed the sentiment, saying that attaching the energy policy amendment to the Internet tax bill was “our only option.”

In an unusual bipartisan move, Daschle urged Senate Democrats to support the attempt by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) to get critical energy policy provisions included in the Internet tax bill. “This is a very much different [energy] bill” being offered, said Daschle, adding that the controversial provision on a liability waiver for producers of a gasoline additive, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), was taken out.

The GOP-led Senate fell five votes shy of the needed 60 votes to invoke cloture on the second-degree amendment offered by Domenici, which would have added the entire 900-plus page policy part of the energy bill (S. 2095) to the Internet measure. By not invoking cloture, his amendment has been set aside indefinitely. If it had been invoked, the Senate would have proceeded with 30 more hours of debate, which is rarely used, that would have led to an up-and-down vote on the amendment.

Domenici picked up some key Democratic support — Senate Minority Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, and Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Evan Bayh of Indiana — for his energy policy amendment, but lost some Republican backers.

But even if the vote had been favorable for Domenici, the victory would have been very short-lived. The Senate immediately following the vote on the Domenici initiative agreed to invoke cloture on a substitute amendment offered by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to the Internet tax cut bill (S. 150), which Domenici acknowledged would have “wiped out” his energy-policy amendment.

The energy proposal “really has no business [in] an Internet tax bill,” said McCain, who vowed that if it had been adopted by the Senate, it would be dropped in conference committee.

The Domenici proposal, some critics said, also would face tremendous opposition from House Republican leaders because it failed to include the liability waiver for MTBE. The safe-harbor provision is strongly backed by both Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

“We’re not going to get MTBE in the United States Senate…It’s an absolute wish that cannot happen,” countered Domenici.

Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, proposed the policy portion of the Senate energy bill as a second-degree amendment on Tuesday. The amendment included all aspects of the energy bill, except the 10-year, $13 billion tax package, which was piggybacked to a corporate tax cut measure earlier this month (S. 1637). A cloture vote on the corporate tax bill is scheduled for the week of May 3.

Frustrated over the energy bill being stalled in the Senate since the start of the year, Domenici saw this as his best opportunity to move the bulk of the energy bill through the chamber.

“This is as good as we’ll ever get,” he said, referring to the streamlined energy measure.

Domenici offered his proposal after Daschle attempted to attach an amendment, which proposed incentives to double the production of corn-based ethanol, to the Internet bill. Daschle’s initiative also failed to achieve cloture, falling 19 votes short of the required 60 votes.

Although “disappointed” that the Senate didn’t throw the energy bill a badly needed life-line, an energy industry analyst believes “there’s [still] a possibility of bringing a bill back later [this year],” but he acknowledged “it will be an uphill battle.”

At the moment, “the mood in the Senate is not a constructive one in terms of getting a major comprehensive bill through,” he told NGI. But there may be “some opportunities after the summertime” to return to the energy bill, particularly if gasoline and natural gas prices continue to escalate, and power outages occur over the peak summer months.

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