House lawmakers on Tuesday voted out the omnibus Republican-crafted energy bill by a wide margin for the second time in nearly seven months, sending it to the Senate in hopes of jump-starting action on the stalled bill in that chamber.

The new measure, “The Energy Policy Act of 2004,” passed by 244 to 178. It is nearly identical to the HR 6 conference report that the House passed in late November (see Daily GPI, Nov. 19, 2003), which called for royalty relief for offshore oil and gas production, expedited permitting of drilling on public lands, tax breaks and incentives for all forms of energy (oil and gas, renewable fuels, nuclear energy and clean coal technology), construction of an Alaska gas pipeline, light-handed regulation of liquefied natural gas and a ban on fraudulent and manipulative behavior in energy markets.

But a Senate aide said the House bill doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in the Senate. The Senate “is not going to approve it this time. It’s a flawed bill. And it’s incomplete” because Democrats weren’t allowed to participate in drafting the measure, said Bill Wicker, a Democratic spokesman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The House’s inclusion of the liability waiver for producers of the gasoline additive, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), “in and of itself is a show stopper” in the Senate, he noted. Wicker said he doubted that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) would even call up the bill, given the strong opposition in the Senate to the MTBE provision.

The House energy policy bill, as well as other energy-related initiatives being considered in the House this week, are “all about election year politics,” Wicker said. “There’s nothing about fixing energy policy. It’s all about…sound bites.”

Marnie Funk, Republican spokeswoman for the Senate energy panel, applauded the House’s effort, but she also doubted it would do much good in the Senate. “We still don’t have the votes to get it [energy bill] passed here,” she said, adding that the bill’s supporters still were three votes shy of stopping a filibuster.

The energy bill has been stuck in the Senate since February, and the House is hoping that its latest effort will help to shake it loose. In May, the Senate managed to pass the $19 billion, 10-year tax portion of the energy bill on the coattails of a broader corporate tax bill (S. 1637), but the biggest part of the bill — the policy portion — remains in limbo.

During a hearing Tuesday, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM) urged Senate Democrats to “stop politicizing energy and pass this bill.”

“The energy bill before the Senate is not perfect. I personally support even stronger measures, but we don’t yet have the votes for them,” he said. “The energy bill is the best solution at hand. It addresses our oil supply, gas supply, electricity challenges, our shared desire to protect our environment and our commitment to conserve more energy.”

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