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Who was in loop, and who was out?

In brokering the final energy bill, the White House wanted something Florida Republicans didn't want to give.

By WES ALLISON and ANITA KUMAR
Published July 27, 2005

WASHINGTON - With final negotiations over the massive federal energy bill almost finished, the Bush administration caught some of its most loyal Florida supporters by surprise with a last-minute attempt to open more of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

The proposal left several Republican lawmakers on the House-Senate negotiating committee scrambling for a compromise late Monday night and early Tuesday morning, as they sought counsel with the president's brother - Florida Gov. Jeb Bush - and Sen. Mel Martinez over how to proceed.

By the time Rep. Mike Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs, sank into his chair around 1 a.m. Tuesday to offer a final, feeble pair of proposals aimed at securing more protections for Florida's coast, his voice was edged with weariness, and not a little irritation.

For eight hours, House and Senate negotiators had been squaring their differences in the energy bill, offering amendments and counteramendments in a cavernous, crowded hearing room on Capitol Hill. Everything should have been settled, with final votes in the House and Senate expected by week's end.

But now Gov. Bush and Martinez, R-Fla., the president's former housing secretary, found themselves in the odd position of opposing the administration, as attempts by Bilirakis and Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, to balance politics and pragmatism over drilling in the gulf were unraveling.

"I was told 10 minutes ago that you had a compromise," Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House energy committee, told Bilirakis as the clock overhead swept toward 1:30 a.m.

"Well, no," said Bilirakis.

"It fell apart?"

Bilirakis nodded. He had just returned to his seat after hours away. His admission capped a night of frantic backroom haggling that found him and Stearns, two of Florida's representatives on the energy bill's negotiating team, struggling for compromise on a White House-backed plan to give Louisiana a swath of the eastern gulf that's protected under federal deals with Florida.

As their House and Senate colleagues haggled over subsidies for oil companies, liquefied natural gas terminals and other points of the energy bill, Bilirakis and Stearns had spent most of the night working a side deal with Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Committee.

Pombo, a youthful rancher who is friendly to oil interests, had approached them with a plan backed by the Bush administration: Permit drilling for natural gas as close as 25 miles from the beaches at the Florida-Alabama line, and allow oil drilling as close as 50 miles. Those areas are now off-limits.

Pombo and the White House also wanted to give Louisiana a slice of gulf waters 200 to 250 miles off Tampa Bay, where the Interior Department believes there are reserves of natural gas.

In return, Florida would be exempt from a new inventory of offshore gas and oil reserves in all U.S. waters that was included in the proposed energy bill, and drilling would be banned by law within at least 100 miles of the state's shores until 2015.

The current moratorium that keeps much of the gulf off Florida free of oil rigs exists only until 2012, and in some areas the offshore buffer is less than 100 miles.

"What we did was cut through all the rhetoric and sit down with the Florida guys and say, "What do you want in all this?' " Pombo said.

Bilirakis and Stearns said they decided it was a good deal, provided Pombo accepted a few changes: They wanted the protected area moved from 100 miles offshore to 120 miles. They wanted the moratorium to last until at least 2020. And they wanted assurances that Florida indeed could opt out of the inventory, which opponents contend is a precursor to drilling in state waters.

More or less, Pombo agreed.

But Senate negotiators would have to agree as well, and the flinty lead negotiator, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., was adamant about including the inventory. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., had threatened to filibuster the entire energy bill if it called for redrawing state boundaries in the gulf.

Sen. Martinez and Gov. Bush were skeptical, too. Stearns and Bilirakis said they had tried to call Martinez and Bush during their discussions with Pombo, and reached several staffers who were cool to the idea.

Martinez said Tuesday that both he and the governor were upset the White House hadn't warned them about the proposal. Gov. Bush declined to comment about what he knew in advance.

Martinez first learned of it late last week from Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., a strong proponent of gulf drilling. Landrieu showed him a memo detailing Interior Secretary Gale Norton's plan to redraw the state boundaries, to give more of the eastern gulf to Louisiana and open it to drilling.

Martinez told Nelson about it, and Nelson promptly sent the energy bill negotiators a letter warning that he would filibuster the bill if the administration's plan was included. The next day, Martinez saw Gov. Bush and told him about the White House plan. The governor hadn't known, either, he said.

"I was surprised the administration took this position so aggressively," Martinez said. "I know that the president has been aggressive about (preventing) drilling off Florida. The question is how you really define Florida."

Asked whether the Bush administration usually advises him and Gov. Bush about such policies, Martinez said, "It doesn't always work this way."

Martinez didn't want to give anything in the eastern gulf to Louisiana, nor did he want drilling so close to the Florida-Alabama border. Neither did Gov. Bush.

"They rejected the offer pretty much, and overall that might have been good," Stearns said. "It was being cut in the middle of the night, and not everybody may have understood it."

Without Martinez's support, and Domenici's concerns about Nelson's filibuster, Stearns and Bilirakis scrapped the deal. Pombo didn't even bother to offer it to the full committee of negotiators.

So Bilirakis and Stearns gave it two more tries: Just past 1 a.m., after Bilirakis' deflated exchange with Barton, he asked his fellow House negotiators to strike the inventory from the bill entirely. That was defeated, 11 votes to 8.

"I don't want to bring this up in public, but there's . . . an awful lot of Florida members who feel awfully strong about this, and it could affect how they might vote on the final bill," he said.

He offered another amendment, asking to allow individual states to opt out of the inventory. Again it died, 11-8.

That means the inventory will be included in the final energy bill, which could reach the House as early as today. The Senate is expected to pass it Thursday or Friday, though Martinez and Nelson say they will oppose it.

After his amendments failed, Bilirakis stepped into the marble hallway outside the Capitol Hill conference room with his wife, Evelyn, for a break. It was 2:15 a.m. He looked exhausted. His wife handed him a pack of peanut butter crackers.

They should have taken the deal, he said as he returned to his seat. "The inventory would have been "poof!' It would have gone away. It's very disappointing, I don't mind telling you."

[Last modified July 27, 2005, 01:06:11]