Tar sands, perhaps. That would be good.

Politico’s The Crypt blog has a report on the Democratic conference call yesterday, where energy was a major item of discussion.

Democratic leaders in the House discussed the possibility on Wednesday of offering a comprehensive energy package when Congress returns in the fall, according to leadership aides.

Details remain hazy from the Wednesday afternoon conference call, and one aide cautioned that “no final decision [was] made.”

But it seems clear party leaders are crafting a comprehensive energy package that would combine a Republican priority to open new offshore sites for oil and gas exploration with Democratic priorities, like tax subsidies for renewable sources of energy or new requirements for energy producers to generate more power from renewables, like wind and solar power.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell commented in anticipation of the call:

What we really need to have is a real debate like we used to have in the Senate where lots of different amendments were offered and you had a chance to offer whatever you thought would make a difference,” McConnell said.

Skepticism seems warranted, just as a matter of political reality. The absolutists among the environmental constituencies will not accept any additional OCS drilling under any circumstance, and so a “compromise” that met their standards would have to be political cover and nothing more. Even if some pro-consumer, pro-energy, pro-market bill passes like the progressively bipartisan Peterson-Abercrombie legislation, H.R. 6709, you don’t think the environmentalist left will immediately turn to the courts to block drilling? It’s what they do.

The Senate “Gang of 10″ and specifically the GOP members came in for a thrashing last week from the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel, a column, “Republican Energy Fumble.” In their desire for bipartisanship and ethanol subidies, they surrendered an important and politically advantageous issue, she wrote:

That’s because the plan is a Democratic giveaway. New production on offshore federal lands is left to state legislatures, and then in only four coastal states. The regulatory hurdles are huge. And the bill bars drilling within 50 miles of the coast — putting off limits some of the most productive areas. Alaska’s oil-rich Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is still a no-go.

The highlight is instead $84 billion in tax credits, subsidies and federal handouts for alternative fuels and renewables. The Gang of 10 intends to pay for all this in part by raising taxes on . . . oil companies! The Sierra Club couldn’t have penned it better.

The 10 eschew the term “raising taxes,” preferring to provide offsets through “loophole closures and other revenue measures.” (Last paragraph on summary sheet.)

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), one of the Decadudes, takes strong issue with the analysis. He called Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit today to rebut Strassel and other critics (Investor’s Business Daily headlined an editorial “The Five Stooges” and Rush Limbaugh was rough, too.) Here’s the Senator’s case.

1. The “gang of 10″ bill unilaterally opens up drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, with no state veto. The GOP bill didn’t do that, because Mel Martinez and Charlie Crist didn’t want it. Non-Gulf states Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas can opt-in if they like; the old GOP bill was opt-in everywhere, allowing Florida to block drilling in the Gulf off of its shores.

2. The bill also allows for seismic exploration along the entire continental shelf.

3. The ban on drilling within 50 miles of the coast was also in the GOP bill.

4. Contrary to many commentators’ claims, the “gang of ten” bill is not a lifeline for Obama: “What a bunch of C-R-A-P. ” (Yes, he spelled it out like that) “If Obama embraced this, he would

Almost too much speechifying, positioning, flanking and flacking going on in the world of energy supply to keep track of….

The House Republicans came up with a clever — and to Democrats, infuriating — stunt last Friday, staying on the floor of the House after adjournment to agitate for more energy supply. Such a good PR move and political energizer of the base, they’ve kept it up this week (at the risk of beating it into the ground).  Basic point: America needs more domestic energy supply, the public supports it, and Congress shouldn’t dodge a vote.  Agreed. (CNN story. National Review coverage by Mark Hemingway.)

Politico profiles the congressional energy politicking in this piece, “Pelosi: At-risk Dems back drilling.” 

California Democrat Nancy Pelosi may be trying to save the planet — but the rank and file in her party increasingly are just trying to save their political hides when it comes to gas prices as Republicans apply more and more rhetorical muscle.

But what looks like intraparty tension on the surface is part of an intentional strategy in which Pelosi takes the heat on energy policy, while behind the scenes she’s encouraging vulnerable Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically, according to Democratic aides on and off Capitol Hill.

Pelosi’s gambit rests on one big assumption: that Democrats will own Washington after the election and will be able to craft a sweeping energy policy that is heavy on conservation and fuel alternatives while allowing for some new oil drilling. Democrats see no need to make major concessions on energy policy with a party poised to lose seats in both chambers in just three months — even if recess-averse Republicans continue to pound away on the issue.

Well, it’s a strategy.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan “Gang of 10″ in the Senate is pushing a plan to allow oil and natural gas drilling in additional portions of the Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic coast, paired with rebates and tax incentives financed by a windfall profits tax on oil companies. Like Jimmy Carter’s windfall profits tax that decreased production, made the U.S. more reliant on foreign oil and failed to produce the projected revenue? Which makes the bill more attractive?

The most realistic plan we saw last week, the one shaped more by economic considerations than political ones, came from Reps. John Peterson (R-PA) and Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) — two longstanding leaders on the issue of increased domestic energy supply. The National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Security Act — H.R. 6709 – would allow drilling on expanded areas of the Outer Continental Shelf and encourage development of U.S. oil shale. States would get a share (30 percent) of the revenues from increased production, with other allocations going to conservation, alternative fuels and low-income energy assistance. (Abercrombie’s website has a good summary.) As of today, the bill has 119 cosponsors – that’s no gang, that’s a significant number of energy-supporting members of Congress from both parties.

As NAM President John Engler said:

Reps. Abercrombie and Peterson and their colleagues on both sides of the aisle have demonstrated their commitment to increasing domestic energy supply and lowering America’s energy bill with today’s proposal.  They recognize the contribution that development of 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the OCS — which is enough natural gas to heat 100 million American homes for 60 years — will make toward energy independence and economic growth.

Trade associations like the NAM are, of course, attuned to the politics of the energy issue, but the basic priority around here is always going to be what works, what’s most effective. And in the current debate about energy policy, the Peterson-Abercrombie bill stands out because it will work.