The Senate’s failure to pass a comprehensive energy bill has prompted Democrats and Republicans to trade accusations of partisanship and election-year desperation.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, blamed Republicans for the failure last week to pass a provision increasing the nation’s use of renewable fuels. Mr. Daschle offered the measure as an amendment to an unrelated bill that would extend a ban on state and local Internet taxes.
Sen. Pete V. Domenici, New Mexico Republican and chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, immediately offered to add the remaining portions of the 913-page energy bill to Mr. Daschle’s amendment.
Both amendments failed to make it into the Internet tax bill. All of the energy bill’s tax provisions are attached to the Republican-sponsored Jumpstart Our Business Strength (JOBS) Act, which provides $3.1 billion in tax incentives for exporters to keep jobs in the United States.
Mr. Daschle has more to lose than any other senator. He has promised to deliver legislation to expand the country’s use of the renewable fuel ethanol — a clean-burning petroleum additive produced by distilling corn — to appease the thousands of corn growers in his state.
Republicans and some Democrats balked at his amendment, but Mr. Daschle blamed Republicans for turning their backs on ethanol.
“Senate Republicans had an opportunity today to deliver a timely economic boost to rural America,” Mr. Daschle said. “Regrettably, because of the Republican leadership, the Senate did not seize this opportunity.”
Dick Wadhams, campaign manager for John Thune, the former South Dakota Republican representative challenging Mr. Daschle for his Senate seat, said, “His claim that Republicans killed that amendment is nonsense.”
He said Mr. Daschle was showing signs of desperation with his back-door attempt to pass the ethanol measure “because after 18 years in the Senate he’s finally having a tough race.”
Republican senators called Mr. Daschle’s amendment an affront to the debate procedures. Had both amendments passed, each would have required an additional 30 hours of debate. Republicans urged colleagues to vote against the Daschle amendment but asked for a positive vote for Mr. Domenici’s bill to save face.
“Energy should not be on an Internet tax bill. But if you want to vote for energy this year, if you want to go home to your consumers and say: I voted for a comprehensive energy bill, this may be the last chance you will have,” said Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican.
“Weigh the odds. What do you want to go home and tell the consumer, who today is paying the highest price for energy in the history of this country? The reason they are paying it is because we can’t produce a bill and change our policies.”
Mr. Craig made it clear in his floor statement that senators on both sides of the aisle can be blamed and will pay for bungling the energy bill for a third straight year.
Officials at the National Corn Growers Association, the chief lobby for increased ethanol use, said the organization could not give full support to Mr. Daschle’s amendment.
“We have long supported a comprehensive energy policy, because not only are we producers of energy, we are also users,” said John Doggett, spokesman of the association.
Among the remaining major proposals in the energy bill is a natural-gas pipeline from Alaska to Chicago and civil-liability protection for producers of MTBE (methyl tertiary-butyl-ether), a fuel additive the federally mandated petroleum companies use to reduce carbon monoxide emissions from vehicles.
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