CARLSBAD, N.M. (By Darren Samuelsohn, Politico) August 20, 2010 — Sen. Jeff Bingaman said Thursday that he doubts Congress will pass any major legislation before Election Day, including a pared-back energy bill focused on responding to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

“I think the Republicans are reluctant to support anything that might result in another signing ceremony between now and the election,” the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee told POLITICO after a Mexican lunch here with Rep. Harry Teague and other local Democrats.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) punted last week on energy legislation that would eliminate the $75 million liability cap on damages oil companies must pay in the case of spills and other disasters and beef up the federal government’s role in managing offshore drilling operations.

But Reid said he’d try again when lawmakers return next month, perhaps even expanding the scope of the proposal to include other energy provisions, like a renewable electricity standard, that were dropped from when the energy and climate bill died in July.

Bingaman said he was in the dark about Reid’s plans for the floor debate. Even so, he said he didn’t think Democrats can muster 60 votes on the oil spill proposal given expected GOP opposition.

“It may well be that we have to wait until a lame-duck session to pass whatever we’re able to pass,” he said.

Democratic leaders on both sides of Capitol Hill tried to move legislation in response to the oil spill, with the House passing its measure last month. In the Senate, Reid ran into unanimous GOP opposition and a handful of Democrats who insisted on more negotiations over the liability issue.

In the Gulf, BP is moving closer this week to permanently sealing the well that’s spewed an estimated 4.9 million barrels of crude since late April. The Obama administration also reported last week that nearly three quarters of the oil has dissipated.


Even with those advances, Bingaman said Congress hasn’t missed its chance to act.

“I don’t think it’s passed us by,” he said. “I think there’s less pressure for something to be done right now. But clearly people expect Congress to legislate in response to what happened in the Gulf. And I think we’ve got good legislation teed up that we ought to get to.”

Reid is being lobbied aggressively by Democrats to tack a renewable electricity standard onto the oil-spill-focused bill. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said last week that some renewable energy advocates count as many as 62 senators ready to support the legislation.

“I feel he’s being receptive if he can be convinced the votes are there,” Udall said.

Reid's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Bingaman said he’s not had a chance to examine any of the whip counts on the renewable electricity standard, an issue that he addressed last year with a committee-passed bill. “I haven’t seen it, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to the individuals on the list to be sure they’re ready to go,” he said.

Carol Browner, the White House’s top energy and climate adviser, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday that there’s “potentially” still a chance to get controversial climate legislation signed into law during the lame-duck session by conferencing a Senate-passed energy bill with the cap-and-trade measure that cleared the House in June 2009.

But Bingaman is skeptical on that front. “I think it’s going to be difficult for the Senate to pass any kind of cap-and-trade legislation,” he said. “I’ve thought that all along. I’ve said that many times. And I think that’s still the case.”

Bingaman is on a tour of New Mexico during the opening week of the August recess. He made several stops on Thursday in Carlsbad, including at a visitor center near the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant where intermediate-level nuclear waste is permanently buried more than 2,000 feet underground.