Senate Democrats and Republicans have been unable to reach an agreement that would limit the number of amendments to be offered to the Democratic energy bill (S. 517). The effort by the Democratic leadership to restrict the amendments is intended to allow a final Senate vote on the bill.

As of last week, it was estimated that there some 100 amendments for consideration to be offered by both Democratic and Republican Senators, Sen. Frank Murkwoski (R-AK), ranking Minority Member on the Senate Energy Committee, said. Sen. Murkowski claimed that Democrats sponsored the bulk of the pending amendments —at least 73. Democrats countered that Republicans refused to provide the Democratic leadership with a definite list of amendments. As a result, the Democrats said they were unable to determine the amount of floor time needed for the legislation. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) told Democrats that the Republicans were unwilling to "lock in" a list of amendments until there is an up-or-down vote on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Sen. Murkowski, who is the Republican floor manager for the energy bill, said he was confident that many of the pending amendments could be resolved without votes and that he was encouraging Senators to reach agreements on these outstanding issues. The next big battles in the energy bill debates are expected to be over mandated ethanol use in gasoline and oil drilling in ANWR. Amendments relating to both these issues also are expected to be introduced. The provision in the energy bill expected to trigger the calls for a mandated tripling of ethanol use nationwide in gasoline.

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