Interview: Senate Republican leader sees energy bill defeat

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday he expects a wall of Republican opposition this week to a Democratic energy bill, which could doom hopes for quick passage of a measure that aims to clean up offshore oil drilling industry practices.

The Senate is supposed to hold a test vote on Wednesday on competing plans by Democrats and Republicans to increase energy company liability for economic damages from oil spills and take other steps in the aftermath of BP's catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, McConnell was asked whether he thought any Republicans would vote to allow debate this week of the more sweeping Democratic bill.

"I hope not," McConnell responded, adding, "I think it is not an appropriate response to the situation."

Without the 60 votes needed to formally begin debating the energy legislation, action in Congress would slow following Friday's passage in the House of Representatives of a similar bill that focused on offshore drilling reforms.

Democrats would need at least a few Republican votes to get beyond the Senate's 60-vote roadblock. The are 41 Republicans, 57 Democrats and two independent lawmakers in the Senate.

On Friday, the Senate is scheduled to begin a five-week break. Before departing, it plans to confirm Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, leaving little time for a full-blown energy debate McConnell said is normally a "multi-week" process.

"There wouldn't be time to deal with it (energy) this week and (it'll) be punted until later in the session," McConnell predicted, even if either version of the bill were to be cleared for debate.

McConnell rattled off three major reasons for Republican opposition: an oil company liability plan Democrats have put forth that he argued would shut out smaller companies from Gulf oil drilling, a new gasoline tax (an increase in fees for an oil spill trust fund) and the absence of language to end Obama's six-month drilling moratorium in the Gulf.

WANTS END TO DRILLING BAN

"If you look at this measure, it doesn't do anything about the job-killing moratorium in the Gulf," McConnell said. That temporary drilling ban, he added, "Is creating the same kind of havoc, if not more havoc, than the spill itself."

Republicans want that moratorium, which would expire at the end of November, to end immediately. The Obama administration wants a few more months to look at deep-water drilling safety problems that could have contributed to the BP disaster -- the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

Any energy bill that emerges from the Senate could become the target for additional Democratic-backed legislation to battle global warming later this year or possibly next year.

Support has been thin in the Senate for mandating smokestack reductions of carbon dioxide, blamed for global warming, despite House passage last year of such a bill.

Many Democrats are worried climate change legislation, which would raise utility bills, would be used against them by Republicans in November's congressional elections.

In the absence of final climate control legislation from Congress, Obama's Environmental Protection Agency early next year could go ahead with new carbon-reduction regulations.

Asked about that, McConnell said: "For the administration to take on a national energy tax in effect by regulation is politically reckless."

Democrats say it is reckless not to impose new restrictions on carbon pollution many scientists fear will lead to dangerously high sea levels and increasingly severe weather.

McConnell said he'd prefer to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by building new nuclear power plants, which emit little carbon dioxide compared to coal-fired power plants.

"But if the president wants to unilaterally do that (impose EPA regulations) going into his own reelection, it would make my day," said McConnell, suggesting Republicans would slam Obama over the issue in the 2012 presidential election.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)