Lawmakers Look to Energy Bill to Douse Public Fire Over Gas Prices

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) was looking for relief when he recently went to the hospital for painful kidney stones. In the process, he confronted an increasing political concern on Capitol Hill -- public anger over high gas prices.

As Hastert received treatment, a hospital attendant asked him what Congress was going to do about pump prices. Hastert replied that the House would pass an energy bill.

The measure is one of several that lawmakers are pushing as they scramble to stop a potential political backlash against the surge in fuel costs and show that they feel the public’s pain at the pump.

With the national average well over $2 a gallon, Republicans and Democrats are eager to show constituents that they are doing something in response -- even though they acknowledge limits to what they can do to provide immediate relief.

They are introducing bills, such as the OPEC Accountability Act, staging press conferences at gas stations and calling for federal investigations into alleged price gouging by oil companies.

President Bush, worried that high gas prices could become a drag on the economy, is expected to make passage of an energy bill the subject of his radio address today, foreshadowing a higher presidential profile on the issue.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted last month found that more Americans were blaming Bush for rising oil and gas prices -- 34%, up from 27% in May. Some political analysts speculate that the high gas prices are contributing to declines in Bush’s overall approval rating.

In a CNN/Gallup/USA Today survey this month, 44% of respondents called it extremely important for Congress and the president to address gas prices. In contrast, 37% described it as extremely important for Congress and the president to overhaul Social Security -- Bush’s main domestic priority.

“If prices continue going up,” said Stuart Roy, a Republican strategist and former aide to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), “everyone will want to be positioned as having tried to bring them down. If prices drop, everyone will want to be there to take the credit.”

Antonia Ferrier, a spokeswoman for Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), added: “When we’re talking about prices of gasoline that are over $2 a gallon ... there’s no question that there’s a sense that we have to do something.”

The focus on the issue comes as California’s average price of self-serve regular gasoline set a record of $2.643 per gallon Friday, according to an AAA survey.

Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs) said gas prices ranked with the solvency of Social Security as her constituents’ top concern in mail and phone calls.

Like Hastert, Bush has come face-to-face with the public desire for action on fuel costs.

He recalled this week that on a recent visit to Ft. Hood in Texas, he was having lunch with soldiers “and the second question asked me was: ‘Why don’t you lower gasoline prices?’ I said, ‘I’d like to.’ ”

Bush cited passage of energy legislation as a crucial step.

The Senate last month endorsed one of Bush’s key energy proposals -- opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The more-sweeping energy bill that he wants passed comes up for debate in the House next week.

The bill is similar to a measure that passed the House but fell two votes short of overcoming a Democratic-led filibuster in the Senate in 2003. Many Democrats have complained that the bill tilts too far toward spurring production and not enough toward promoting conservation.

GOP leaders hope higher gas prices will increase the pressure on the Senate to approve the bill this year.

The bill would provide tax breaks to encourage more domestic production of oil. It also would promote the building of new oil refineries and reduce the proliferation of different fuel formulas around the country. The variety of gasoline recipes, industry officials say, makes it difficult for oil companies to move gas from one location to another during supply shortages.

Politically, it doesn’t matter if such provisions deal with the long term, said Roy, the Republican strategist. “The most important thing for policy makers in the current environment of relatively high gas prices and the approaching summer travel months is action.”

Among other efforts, several senators have called on Bush to press the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the major oil-producing cartel, to increase output.

They also have urged him to tap the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve to put more gas on the market.

Bush has been adamant against using oil from the emergency supply in the absence of a national security crisis, saying he won’t use the reserve to manipulate market prices.

Congressional Republicans also have argued that when President Clinton released oil from the reserve in the summer and fall of 2000, the drop in gas prices was negligible.

Lawmakers’ desire to show the public they are doing something even brought together Republicans and Democrats on the polarized Senate Judiciary Committee.

Lawmakers set aside their partisan battle over judicial nominations last week to advance legislation that would remove legal barriers to lawsuits in U.S. courts that alleged price fixing by oil-producing nations.