There is an old folklore that once, over breakfast, Thomas Jefferson asked George Washington why there was a need for a Senate. Washington responded with, “Why did you just pour that coffee into your saucer, before drinking?”
“To cool it,” answered Jefferson, “my throat is not made of brass.”
Washington replied, “Even so, we pour our legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.”
For most of this Congress, the Senate and the House have drafted, debated, and finally voted, to pass comprehensive energy bills. Last week, the Senate voted to confirm seven conferees, including Senator John Cornyn of Texas, to commence formal negotiations with forty Members of the House to reconcile the differences between the two bills. Both pieces of legislation address energy policies that have not been updated in almost a decade. Heated debates in the House resulted in a highly partisan bill that President Obama has said he will never sign into law. Give-and-take discussions in the Senate, meanwhile, produced a bipartisan bill that focuses on the major energy policy issues. The resulting bills dramatically underscore the differences between the House and the Senate and the importance of the “senatorial saucer.”
The process on the House side of the Capitol demonstrated how difficult it has been in this Congress to pass anything of significance, and why so little has been accomplished. The House bill is rife with partisan proposals and Republican generated provisions. When it was first introduced, the legislation enjoyed wide bipartisan support, but as amendments were added by Republican members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Democrats dropped their support. The debates were heated, and the strong majority party did not need to compromise with the minority; they had the votes to add thirty extraneous bills that the President had already pledged to veto. When the legislation was finally presented to the full House for consideration, only eight Democrats voted for it, and six Republicans voted against its passage. Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) even conceded that the bill was too partisan and pledged to reach an agreement with Senate negotiators. Upton has said that he remains “confident that we can get a bill that is in fact bipartisan and the president can sign.”
In the Senate, working together, Republicans and Democrats passed a bill that is bipartisan and accomplishes its intended purpose of modernizing the nation’s energy policies. Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said her committee wrote a solidly bipartisan energy bill, because, “we needed to update our country's energy laws, and in order to get a good product we were going to have to work cooperatively and collaboratively.”
Ranking Member of the Committee Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) said the House bill has “a lot of thorny issues,” but Democratic and Republican Senators agreed that “if they didn’t get resolved, they wouldn’t hold up the whole thing.” She said of the Senate bill, “Don’t hold it hostage for things you can’t get done.”
Members of the Senate took their time and refused to be rushed into passing a bill until every member had an opportunity to contribute. The Senate bill focuses on the fundamentals by accelerating the export of natural gas, improving energy efficiency, investing in renewable energy, and modernizing the electric grid. Chairman Murkowski promised to deliver a final bill that can pass both chambers and be signed into law by the president. She said she will accomplish this “by seeking consensus over partisan division.” The result was a large bipartisan victory with 85 senators voting in favor of passage. Senator Cantwell said proudly, “This bipartisan bill will benefit American taxpayers for generations to come.”
There are many important provisions in the two bills that are aligned and needed to upgrade the country’s energy infrastructure and increase energy production. Both bills expedite the approval process for LNG export terminals and update and streamline the permitting process for the storage, transmission, and distribution of natural gas, but finding common ground will not be easy. A big hurdle is the congressional calendar. Congress is in recess until after Labor Day, and after four weeks of votes in September, Congress will adjourn for the election. But the committee chairs have pledged to work through the recess, and negotiations have already started. Congressman Upton has said passage of the bill is not likely to happen until after the November election.
If a compromise between the two bills can be found, it will be because of the steady and collaborative work of the Senate. George Washington was right.
