Note to Sen. Frist

Dear Sen. Bill Frist:

As Senate majority leader, you surely know that your own caucus wants the stalled S. 2095 energy legislation to pass — and that there are Democratic senators who want to get it passed and signed into law. It’s time to show leadership and statesmanship by moving this wide-ranging $14 billion bill onto the Senate floor for a vote.

Whether some powerful Democrats in your chamber like it or not, this country needs a comprehensive, cohesive energy policy. This nation needs fuel diversity. We need to continue to foster the use of coal, clean nuclear power, hydrogen, hydroelectricity and natural gas. The development of such a diverse fuel supply will make us less reliant on costly Middle Eastern fuel in an era of world turmoil and terrorism.

S. 2095 encourages exploration in the more technologically challenged and costly deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico to ensure a more reliable supply of domestic oil. It also includes royalty relief to encourage small oil producers to continue processing oil even in economically challenging times. Thus, one of your main arguments is that passage is needed in order to help stop gasoline prices at the pump from creeping upward.

And isn’t boosting domestic oil production, along with ensuring electric reliability, really the bottom line why this bill is so essential now? Go on television, get in the newspapers and speak on the Senate floor, and say so.

You worked with other lawmakers to slash $13 billion from the bill so it would be more palatable to fiscal watchdogs in both parties. The so-called safe harbor provision for both MTBE (a fuel additive that has contaminated some drinking supplies) and Ethanol-TBE has been deleted. A provision on energy- savings performance contracts has been deleted, for a whopping savings of $3 billion. Four oil and gas provisions are delayed for a savings of $260 million. And the provision requiring directed spending of $1.5 billion for research on ultra-deep oil wells is now subject to future appropriations — another tremendous savings.

But the provision ensuring electric reliability — especially in light of last summer’s economically disruptive Northeast power blackout — remains unchanged. One key stipulation requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to provide incentives for transmission investment, including a return sufficient for new investment. It provides additional incentives for participation by regional transmission organizations — which can only help grid reliability.

Many Americans don’t realize that, during the past 25 years, investment in the nation’s electricity-transmission system has fallen by about $115 million per year, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. S. 2095, as you well know, finally addresses this crisis. Extremely important, too, is the provision that protects service by a utility to its native load customers. Meeting a service obligation to a native load, under this bill, cannot be considered to be “discriminatory” or “preferential” by the FERC’s socialist-leaning bureaucrats.

In addition to commonsense measures to produce more energy, there is also a well-defined set of strategies for saving energy through energy efficiency — such as modest tax credits for buyers of fuel-efficient, gas-hybrid vehicles.

There is a short and congested legislative calendar. What’s the holdup? Don’t get distracted by the September 11 commission, Iraq and other made-for-TV issues. Surely you know that the sooner the Senate gets on with the task of passing this vitally needed bill, the better off our country and economy will be. And if John Kerry gets elected to the White House, you know there will never be as good an energy bill as this one that would ever pass his muster.

Phil Kent is an Atlanta media consultant and author of “The Dark Side of Liberalism.”