House Panel Clears a Broad Utilities Bill : Energy: The measure is expedited to a floor vote. It lacks some controversial provisions contained in a Senate version.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved a far-reaching energy bill that would revolutionize the nation’s electric utility industry, increase federal support of alternative fuels and renewable energy sources and require oil companies to provide oil for the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The bill would get the Energy Department out of the troubled uranium-enrichment business. It would provide federal subsidies for some non-petroleum fuels, expedite construction of natural gas pipelines and require federal buildings to be more energy efficient.

It took the committee less than five hours to mark up the 12-section bill, which required 24 days of hearings and nine days of markup in subcommittee last year. The vote to send the bill to the House floor was 42 to 1, with Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) dissenting by proxy.

The committee’s approval of the measure virtually ensured that Congress will send President Bush a major energy bill with many novel and controversial provisions before the November election.

Last month, the Senate approved, 94 to 4, a bill that is similar on some crucial points but differs on many others. Both bills contain only some of the measures in Bush’s proposed National Energy Strategy. The White House favors the Senate version.

Rep. Philip R. Sharp (D-Ind.), chairman of the energy subcommittee and chief architect of the bill, joked that the committee moved so swiftly in order to “cut down on the billings” of all the high-powered lobbyists who packed the committee hearing room and corridors in the Rayburn House Office Building.

The real reason was behind-the-scenes negotiations among key members, including committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Norman F. Lent (R-N.Y.), the senior minority member. Its amendments, covering everything from efficiency standards for appliances to energy management training of federal officials to the commercial potential of energy from rice hulls, was worked out before the markup and adopted without dissent.

Passage was also eased by the bill’s lack of a provision to make it easier to obtain an operating license for a nuclear power plant, which the Senate version contains.

In the House, the Interior Committee, not the Energy and Commerce Committee, has jurisdiction over nuclear regulation.

Nor would the House bill authorize oil exploration in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge--sought by the Administration but killed by the Senate--or raise automobile fuel efficiency standards--sought by environmentalists and killed by the Senate.

Lobbyists from industry and environmental groups expected Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) to offer an amendment mandating deep cuts in the carbon dioxide emissions thought to contribute to global warming. Such an amendment might have scuttled the entire bill because of Dingell’s opposition, but Waxman refrained.

He said it was pointless to legislate on energy matters without dealing with the “potentially devastating environmental changes we are imposing on ourselves,” and offered to negotiate with Dingell and committee Republicans a compromise amendment that would be added on the House floor.