Well, you can't say they didn't try.
House Republicans on Wednesday offered up their own energy bill, one that focuses on building 100 nuclear power plants in the next 20 years and opening oil and gas drilling in offshore regions and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the Associated Press reports.
The American Energy Act, as the bill sponsored by Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., is called, does give support for renewable energy with tax credits and funding to be paid through leases from all the proposed oil and gas drilling.
But, unlike the energy and climate bill from Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., which includes a controversial cap-and-trade plan to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, the Republicans' offering says nothing about combating climate change (see House Energy Bill Draft: Cap-and-Trade Included).
As an alternative to the Democrat-sponsored bill now being debated in the House, the Republican alternative stands little chance, of course, given the GOP's lack of votes in Congress.
Republican efforts to make nuclear power plants eligible for energy bill incentives by putting them in the same "low-emissions" class as wind and solar power have been repeatedly blocked in Congress, for example (see Former EPA Chief: Building 100 More Nuclear Reactors is Doable).
The Democratic bill, on the other hand, has been in the works for two months and has the support of President Barack Obama. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pledged to bring it to a full House vote in July.
But the proposed cap-and-trade system has faced a spirited backlash from industry and business groups that say it will increase energy costs and harm the economy, which has led to some compromises weakening its original provisions (see Come Get 'Em: Gov't Plans to Give Freebies Under Cap-and-Trade).
And expanding offshore drilling isn't just for Republicans. A Senate committee voted Tuesday to add to the energy and climate bill an amendment, proposed by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that would shrink the buffer zones around Florida's coastline where drilling is prohibited, the Miami Herald reported.
At the same time, however, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee did reject a proposal from Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to open the arctic wildlife refuge to drilling.
