Energy bill could take route that avoids committee Democrats on Capitol Hill are poised to sidestep the formal legislative process to try to push out an energy bill. The Senate and House each passed their own versions of energy legislation this summer, but the bills have languished for months waiting for Democratic leaders to appoint a conference committee, where negotiators from both chambers would try to craft a compromise. "Unfortunately ... it doesn't appear that we will be able to get a conference," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday. "But ... that doesn't mean we won't be going forward." Instead, Democratic leaders plan to hold closed-door talks to write a new energy bill they hope can win approval in both houses of Congress. Pelosi said earlier this week she hopes to pass an energy bill by year's end. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, decried the process Democrats are adopting, calling it the "OPEC approach to energy policy: meet in secret, restrict supplies and jack up prices." And Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, warned "the only way to pass an energy bill that will have a chance at final passage is through a bipartisan conference committee."....