Republicans urge national energy policy
© 2000 Reuters Limited
June 23, 2000
Story by Julie Vorman
WASHINGTON - Republican leaders, facing voters' growing anger about high gasoline prices, accused the Clinton administration yesterday of dragging its heels in developing a national energy policy to include oil drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge.
With retail gasoline prices above $2 a gallon in politically important areas such as Chicago and Milwaukee, both parties have been scrambling to get out front on the issue.
Gasoline prices have emerged as a theme in the presidential election campaign, and could also influence several close congressional races that will determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, a Mississippi Republican, said the best way to steady rising oil and gasoline prices was by allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska.
"We need to open up areas that are now closed, like ANWR," Lott told reporters. "We need to have incentives to get...oil wells that are now capped and so-called marginal wells back in production."
The Clinton administration has failed to do enough to promote domestic oil production, he said.
"All of their actions have been actions to try to ignore our dependence on foreign oil," Lott said. About 55 percent of the oil consumed by Americans is imported.
But earlier yesterday, President Bill Clinton said Congress was blocking his efforts to fashion a comprehensive energy policy.
The White House has proposed incentives for alternative energy sources, developing vehicles that do not use gasoline, and creating a special stockpile of fuel oil for Northeastern states that are dependent on oil to heat their homes.
Lott downplayed the president's criticism.
"I think he's groping there," Lott said. "We've got to look at it in a bigger way than that."
Gasoline prices have been driven up by the Environmental Protection Agency's insistence that the nation's dirtiest cities adopt cleaner-burning gasoline this month, he said.
"Those EPA standards, typical of everything else that comes out of EPA, probably are extreme and probably should be waived and reviewed," he added.
The administration asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate a recent rapid rise in Midwestern gasoline prices, a probe expected to take several weeks. Pump prices in Chicago and Milwaukee are more than 50 cents a gallon higher than most of the nation.
Oil prices have also shone the spotlight on Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.
Several Republican lawmakers have called for Richardson's resignation over the disappearance of computer hard drives containing classified nuclear arms information. President Clinton yesterday expressed confidence in Richardson.
"I'm afraid I don't share the president's confidence," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
"Our petroleum costs are spiraling out of control and our nuclear secrets go missing for months at a time before turning up behind copiers," Hastert said. "When it comes to their most important responsibilities, Secretary Richardson and the Department of Energy have been missing in action."
Richardson will testify at a Tuesday hearing before the House International Relations committee on what the DOE is doing to limit gasoline price increases.
Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, said the White House should also analyse the feasibility of drilling on public lands in the Rocky Mountains, an area that could contain as much as 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Small oil producers need tax credits, increased depletion allowances and other federal incentives to help them resume production, Roberts said.
"The FTC investigation is important, but pointing the finger of blame will not ensure that we find a long-term solution to this price crisis," Roberts said. "There are many other substantial measures that must be taken."
Lott said a U.S. energy policy should also provide incentives for Americans to convert their home heating systems from fuel oil to natural gas.
"We have a large supply of natural gas, and it's clean-burning. And yet, there is no incentive to make that conversion," Lott said. "I just don't understand that."
The Republican leader also criticised the Environmental Protection Agency's strict anti-pollution rules that threaten to close down some coal-fired power plants.
A Clinton veto of a congressional plan for storing nuclear power plants' waste also means that some nuclear plants may have to consider shutting down, Lott said.