Washington policy makers stand in the way of sensible energy policies

After Hurricane Katrina temporarily knocked out 30% of America's oil refinery capacity and caused gasoline prices to spike, it became dramatically obvious that the nation needed to build more refineries away from the vulnerable Gulf Coast. But when a bill to streamline the permitting process and provide incentives to build refineries on closed military bases was headed for the Senate floor, Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R., R.I.) joined with every Democrat on the Senate Environment Committee and blocked the bill. Mr. Chafee says he opposed the bill only because it lacked provisions to develop alternative fuels and raise fuel-economy standards, although he offered no amendments to that effect. But even if conservation takes center stage in the future, existing energy sources must be expanded now before the economy's health is jeopardized. A just published report by the New England Energy Alliance warns that "energy shortages could be acute soon--by 2010 at the latest" if policy makers in the region don't act aggressively. Unfortunately, Mr. Chafee and other senators appear more concerned about fending off the aggressive criticism of the green lobby...But on other energy issues it's Republicans standing in the way of progress. This month, House leaders had to bow to the demands of some two dozen GOP moderates and strip a budget bill of provisions to allow exploration for oil on Alaska's North Slope and permit states like Virginia that wanted to opt out of moratoriums on oil and natural gas exploration off their coasts to do so. Sen. Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, has been touting a "windfall profits" tax, even though the net profit margin of oil and gas companies on the Standard & Poor's 500 is 9%, barely above the S&P average of 8%. In reality, high energy prices are often the direct consequence of misguided government policy. After House leaders were forced to remove natural gas drilling provisions from the budget, Jack Gerard of the American Chemistry Council said he was "flabbergasted that some in Congress continue to live in a fantasy world, in which the government encourages use of clean-burning natural gas while cutting off supply, and then they wonder why prices go through the roof." Natural gas prices recently spiked at $14 per million BTUs, the highest in the world and the equivalent of $7 a gallon gasoline...Polls show that the public is now much more willing to consider an expanded role for nuclear power, an environmentally clean way of generating electricity that could also someday help to make hydrogen cars or other alternative means of powering cars economically viable. New plant designs have laid to rest many fears about the safety of nuclear power plants and Mr. Bush now appears to ready to announce a major initiative to promote nuclear energy and also help discourage developing countries from making plutonium that can also be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. In light of the Nimby opposition to storing spent nuclear fuel from utilities at the Yucca waste repository in Nevada, the Bush administration is likely to announce plans to have Washington step in--using a national security justification--and take the spent nuclear fuel off of the hands of utilities. It would then be stored at a federal facility in Nevada where a fuel recycling facility could be built. Fuel could also be recycled at the Savannah River national laboratory in South Carolina. Federal recycling facilities could handle fuel not just for U.S. utilities, but also for those nations who would be willing to give up plans to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle. That would help with the campaign against proliferation of nuclear weapons as well as improve the environment and spur economic growth in the developing world....