While Capitol Hill’s legislative schedule has been turned upside down in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee still expects to mark up and vote out a comprehensive energy bill this fall, an aide to the committee said.

“We have every intention of returning to mark-up” in the near term, noted press spokesman Bill Wicker. But he would not predict exactly when that would be. “I really don’t know if they [the senators] know right now” when they will resume work on the bill, he told NGI.

Still, “we are hopeful that we can deliver on our part” by voting out energy legislation to the full Senate this fall, Wicker said. It then will be up to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) to decide whether to schedule it for a vote on the Senate floor. The prospect of a Senate bill emerging obviously will depend greatly on how long the Senate chooses to remain in session this fall. This is the big unknown at this point, although some analysts speculate that Congress could go as late as November or early December.

Even though the mark-up has been temporarily placed on hold, Wicker said there “continues to be active work [at the committee level] in pulling together the chairman’s mark of the energy bill.”

Energy has been swept aside for the time being as the Senate addresses a number of more immediate issues brought on by the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. last week, including national security issues, a potential bailout of the faltering airline industry as well as 11 pending appropriation bills. The spending bills must be approved before the federal government’s new fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. These matters are at “the top of the Senate’s ‘to do’ list,” Wicker said.

Nevertheless, “energy does remain a priority” of the Senate, he noted, given that it is so “vital to the economy and national defense.” If anything, “the events of Sept. 11th highlight the importance of a sound energy policy.”

He indicated that the Senate committee is considering adding a provision to its legislation to beef up the security of energy facilities in the United States. “We certainly are taking another look at it,” Wicker said, adding that last week’s assaults have focused “renewed attention on the physical security and cyber security of our energy infrastructure.”

The Senate’s energy bill currently has five parts — research and development (R&D), electricity, improved energy efficiency, oil and natural gas and policy. So far, the committee only has marked up the R&D section.

In early August, the House of Representatives passed its landmark energy legislation, which, among other things, called for oil and natural gas drilling in the coastal plain region of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The odds of an ANWR provision being included in the Senate bill have long been considered slim, but some now think this and other initiatives to enhance domestic energy production may stand a better chance in the wake of the brutal attacks on the nation.

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