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The Boston Globe National Perspective Column

Posted on: Tuesday, 2 May 2006, 15:00 CDT

By Peter S. Canellos, The Boston Globe

May 2--WASHINGTON -- It's tempting to view the latest spike in gasoline prices, coming just as Americans are gearing up for the summer holiday season, as the final nail in the coffin of the Republican Congress.

With continued instability in Iraq, ethics complaints, and disarray in its own ranks, the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is facing a fusillade of problems as it gears up for reelection in November.

Soaring gas prices, biting into the paychecks of the middle class, look to be one more problem -- perhaps the biggest of them all.

In the meantime, the party has been searching for a major issue around which to coalesce, to convince voters it can still govern effectively. And an energy crisis presents such an opportunity.

Many conservatives had hoped that their big defining issue of the year would be immigration, where decisive action to stem the tide of undocumented immigrants would arm GOP candidates with a law-and-order issue to take to the voters in the fall.

The House did its part, passing a harsh enforcement measure in December.

But many Republicans in the Senate and President Bush do not support a crackdown without a more comprehensive remaking of the immigration system, including a guest-worker plan and perhaps even a path for immigrants without papers to gain citizenship.

But a comprehensive package would erase the differences between Republicans and the Democrats on immigration. Some sort of compromise seems to be in the offing, which probably will be a wash for both parties.

Now, the House, Senate, and White House -- all under GOP control -- must confront rising gas prices, amid growing restlessness among voters.

The energy bill approved last year, which included enough breaks for oil companies to make even fiscally conservative Republicans uncomfortable, didn't quell voters' concerns.

In fact, it gave the Democrats plenty of evidence to claim that the Republican Party is in bed with Big Oil, a politically potent weapon, as prices are listed above $3 per gallon on most Exxon pumps around the country.

That's why Senator Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican who is running for reelection in an oil-producing state, suddenly announced on television over the past weekend that he is considering the possibility of supporting a windfall profit tax on oil companies.

"This may be a shock to you, but I'm going to keep my options open," Lott said on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. "If the oil companies don't stop escalating prices, it is going to force the people to demand that the Congress do something more, and the Congress is going to have to do more."

Last week, the White House touted President Bush's request for Congress to give him the authority to raise fuel-efficiency standards on light trucks. Such a move would be among the mildest of many proposals to increase fuel-economy standards floating around Washington, but it seemed to mark a shift in emphasis for Bush, an acknowledgment of the need to balance increases in oil production with conservation.

As Lott, who gained the freedom to be candid after being dumped by his party as Senate majority leader, put it: "We need the whole package, including nuclear plants. And I do think we should have drilled in [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] . . . I want the whole package. I want to conserve. I want alternative fuels. Hybrid automobiles? Sure, let's do that."

So far, neither party has endorsed such a balanced approach. Republicans have focused mostly on opening new areas for drilling, providing incentives for oil companies to boost production, and clearing the way for nuclear plants.

Democrats have focused mostly on improving fuel-economy standards, providing more incentives for building hybrid gas-electric cars, and taxing windfall profits by oil companies. Both parties have pledged to support research into renewable energy.

With oil prices taking off, some giddy Democrats are happy to let the Republicans work their own way through the crisis. They believe that little can be done to lower energy prices before the election, and that any action by Republicans will tend to confirm, in voters' minds, the GOP's responsibility for the problem.

But Republicans have scored successes in recent elections based in part on their ability to govern, their willingness to develop a strategy, and their determination to stick with it.

Their recent disarray on immigration, coupled with the House's failure to pass a budget, have left them looking as disoriented as the Democrats have often seemed in recent years.

The energy crisis at least gives the GOP majority an occasion to show it can still grapple with the big issues.

Peter S. Canellos is the Globe's Washington bureau chief. National Perspective is his weekly analysis of events in the capital and beyond.

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Source: The Boston Globe

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