"This is a day to smile and smile big," said Domenici (R-N.M.), who
had seemed near despair only hours earlier. "The reason I'm smiling is
because I'm going to be rewriting that bill. ... The final bill will
look more like what I produced in committee this spring than it will
the bill we are passing tonight."

The outcome is almost certainly going to be a festival of pork, a bill
larded with taxpayer giveaways to the oil, gas, coal and nuclear
industries. Perhaps a few incentives for renewable energy, but a lot
more for drilling and digging. And, of course, plenty of payoffs for
the campaign contributors that helped shape the Cheney and Republican
congressional energy plans in the first place.

With "friends" like Da'shill, GOPheart and LIEberman on our side, who
needs enemies?
=======================================


OUT OF ENERGY

Frank O'Donnell is the executive director of the Clean Air Trust, a
national non-profit watchdog group founded by former Senators Edmund
Muskie of Maine and Robert Stafford of Vermont.

:::::::::What on Earth were the Democrats thinking of?::::::::::::::::::

On July 31, Senate Republicans appeared to be imploding.

Their attempt to pass an industry-friendly energy bill was stalled on
the Senate floor. Indeed, the Republicans were barely fending off
amendments aimed at protecting consumers from Enron-style rip-offs.

To make matters worse for the GOP, Majority Leader Bill Frist insisted
on interrupting the energy debate to force votes on conservative
judicial nominees such as Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor -- a
move which permitted Democrats not only to dissect Pryor's right-wing
zealotry but to suggest there was more than a little hanky-panky in
the whole nominating process.

All at once, the Republicans were managing to come across as the
anti-consumer, anti-environmental, anti-choice party of Enron, bigotry
and deception.

But suddenly Democratic Leader Tom Daschle threw his Republican
colleagues an unexpected life raft. If they really wanted to pass an
energy bill, said Daschle, why not just ratify what the
Democratic-controlled Senate passed a year ago?

At first, it seemed as if Daschle was simply jabbing an elbow into
Republican ribs. But -- with some advice from Vice President *****
Cheney -- the Senate Republicans realized they could take the
suggestion and run to the bank with it, with big energy industry
campaign contributor deposits in hand.

By the day's end, the Senate had leapfrogged a huge impediment to
President Bush's energy plan. They had passed the "Democratic" bill --
and sent the measure off to a Republican-dominated conference
committee, where the real energy bill will be written.

Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), the floor manager of the energy bill,
was ebullient.

"This is a day to smile and smile big," said Domenici, who had seemed
near despair only hours earlier. "The reason I'm smiling is because
I'm going to be rewriting that bill. ... The final bill will look more
like what I produced in committee this spring than it will the bill we
are passing tonight."

The outcome is almost certainly going to be a festival of pork, a bill
larded with taxpayer giveaways to the oil, gas, coal and nuclear
industries. Perhaps a few incentives for renewable energy, but a lot
more for drilling and digging. And, of course, plenty of payoffs for
the campaign contributors that helped shape the Cheney and Republican
congressional energy plans in the first place.

This legislation will be setting the course of energy policy in this
country for at least a decade -- and the Democratic action probably
ensures that the policy will continue a reliance on fossil fuels, with
no meaningful improvement in fuel economy.

The Democrats tried to maintain a game face (they did manage to
extract the promise of a future vote on the need to restrain
heat-trapping emissions linked to global warming), but
environmentalists and other public interest groups weren't buying it.

"Perhaps the saddest part was how [the Dems] tried to spin us that it
was a good thing for us," the leader of one public interest group told
me. "While in the other corner of the room the [White House] lobbyists
and the utility guys were exchanging high-fives."

The question still lingers: why did the Democrats do it?

Perhaps former Majority Leader Trent Lott put his finger on it.

"They were afraid they would lose their ethanol deal," Lott said.

He was referring to an agreement, put together by Daschle, to require
a massive increase in the amount of ethanol in gasoline, a measure
really designed to boost the price of corn. It's a bipartisan
boondoggle (reviews are mixed as to whether ethanol production reduces
or increases overall energy use) but a particular priority for Daschle
in an election year. Indeed, the good citizens of South Dakota could
be forgiven if they erected a giant statue of Sen. Daschle -- next to
an equally giant statue of an ear of corn.

All observers agree that whatever else is in the final energy bill,
the corn deal will be a prominent part of it.

This sorry incident could become a useful reminder if and when the
Bush administration tries a similar maneuver with so-far moribund
"Clear Skies Initiative." That bill, also supported by big polluters,
probably can't pass the Senate in its current form.

But some of its Senate supporters are already signaling they might
bend a little in order to move the measure through the Senate -- and
into a Republican-dominated conference committee. Sound familiar?

If so, the question will be: Did the Democrats learn anything?