As Energy Prices Rise, So Does the Rancor

President Bush and Democratic leaders decried the rising cost of energy Saturday, but Bush implicitly blamed Democrats for outmoded environmental restrictions while Democrats explicitly blamed Bush for favoring the energy industry over consumers.

Speaking for Democrats, California Gov. Gray Davis said the energy plan that the president unveiled Tuesday would do nothing to alleviate the immediate threats of rising gasoline prices and blackouts in California.

The president’s plan “simply favors more energy production at the expense of everything else,” said Davis, who has unsuccessfully lobbied the Bush administration to temporarily cap wholesale prices until new power plants can be brought on line.

Davis, whose popularity has sunk during the crisis, noted that companies from Bush’s home state of Texas were the targets of most allegations of price-gouging in California by out-of-state energy suppliers.

“Mr. President, runaway energy prices are not just a California problem,” Davis said. “With all due respect, I urge you to stand up to your friends in the energy business and exercise the federal government’s exclusive responsibility to ensure that energy prices are reasonable.”

Bush so far has tried to stay above the fray, letting his aides respond to criticisms. “It’s time to leave behind rancorous old arguments and build a positive new consensus,” the president said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

But the rancor is certain to continue. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Saturday announced the launch of a monthlong radio and television advertising campaign targeting Republican lawmakers whom they blame for not doing enough to ease the energy crunch.

The campaign specifically criticizes Rep. Stephen Horn (R-Long Beach) for opposing a temporary cap on electricity prices. It is scheduled to start Monday with a 30-second spot that ends with a message urging viewers to call Horn’s offices for immediate action.

“California’s energy crisis is deepening, with summer blackouts predicted and rate hikes of up to 80%,” the ad states. “Yet President Bush has offered no relief to hard-pressed ratepayers. . . . Our representative, Steve Horn, has joined with Bush in opposing a temporary cap on electricity prices. Call Horn and tell him we need action now.”

Mark Nevins, a committee spokesman, said the ad campaign is part of an effort to hold Horn and fellow Republicans accountable for lack of leadership on the energy issue.

“Horn’s party controls the House, the Senate and the White House--and they have yet to do a thing to provide some immediate relief to California’s families,” Nevins said.

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) called on Bush on Saturday to endorse temporary price caps to stop what he termed 10- and even 20-fold increases in Californians’ energy bills.

Appearing on CNN’s “Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields,” Gephardt also said Bush should have included his tax incentives for energy conservation in the giant tax cut bill that is moving through Congress.

“The good parts of his plan are not in his budget and not in his tax bill, which really makes a mockery of what he’s really suggesting,” Gephardt said. “We’re putting through this week, supposedly, a $1.3-trillion tax cut--probably the biggest tax cut in our history. And there’s not a penny in it for the energy stuff that he suggested this week.”

The president’s energy plan calls for greater production of power and fuel, tax breaks for conservation and construction of new nuclear plants.

Two of its most controversial elements are opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling and giving federal agencies power to force landowners to sell property needed for new electricity transmission lines.

Responding to growing complaints from environmentalists, Bush insisted that new technologies would enable the nation to boost energy production without hurting the environment.

“Too often, Americans are asked to take sides between energy production and environmental protection,” Bush said. “The truth is, energy production and environmental protection are not competing.”

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Times staff writer Robert Marosi in Los Angeles contributed to this story.