Jeff Bingaman: “about 2 weeks ago I urged that the House leadership go ahead and appoint conferees for the energy bill on which we…”

“about 2 weeks ago I urged that the House leadership go ahead and appoint conferees for the energy bill on which we should be in conference at this point. As Senators will remember, we passed the energy bill in the Senate on April 25. The respective leaders of the two parties appointed conferees on May 1. Since then, we have not seen any action on the House side to appoint conferees so we could begin a conference with the House of Representatives on this very important bill. The House bill is in excess of 500 pages. The bill we passed in the Senate after 6 weeks of floor debate is nearly 1,000 pages in length. It will take several weeks to come to agreement on a joint proposal we can take back to the two Houses and, hopefully, to the President. The sooner we can get started, the better for everyone's point of view. It is in the country's interests that we try to resolve the differences between the House and the Senate and try to enact an energy bill this year. As long as we do not have conferees named on the House side, that makes it extremely difficult. I, again, urge the leadership on the House side to appoint their conferees.”