Congress has little time left this fall to deal with a full plate before going on its election-year campaign break. But there are several matters it should get to before the new Congress takes office early next year. Among those is energy and approving a bill that creates a multipronged approach to meeting the nation's energy needs.

Such an approach should include opening up more domestic fields to drilling, including in some offshore areas, pursuing clean coal technology, building more infrastructure such as refineries and power lines and consideration of new nuclear plants.

But such measures should be viewed primarily as bridges from a present that is too reliant on fossil fuels to a future that uses new technology and renewable sources of energy to free this nation of its fossil fuel addiction.

Such measures need to be coupled with serious conservation measures; mandates for use of more renewable sources of energy, such as wind farms; and tax breaks and other measures that can foster development of that new technology.

That's a tall order for a Congress with only a few weeks left in session, but representatives and senators at least can start creating a coherent national policy with new legislation in these remaining days.

Increasing the domestic supply of oil and natural gas through such measures as expanded offshore drilling will not have a dramatic effect on the price of gasoline, as some consumers undoubtedly hope. But it could help curb the appetite for speculation that has factored into the increase in gasoline prices, and it could replace some of the oil now imported from a volatile Middle East.

No one really knows how much oil lies off the U.S. coast. Congressional Quarterly reports that the offshore area that is off-limits now, the outer continental shelf, holds about 18 billion barrels of oil, according to estimates by the federal Minerals Management Service. That's equivalent to less than 1.4 percent of worldwide oil reserves.

But industry executives say estimates of oil reserves are typically conservative, according to the CQ report. Once production actually begins, companies often find more than they expected. "If we're allowed to develop, the resources multiply," Jim Ford, chief lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, told CQ.

Ford said that the industry is eager to invest in new domestic exploration as known oil fields play out. Making new areas available might change market perceptions that supplies can't keep up with demand, he said.

And while new finds probably wouldn't come online for a decade or more, a commitment to finding new sites could reassure the world market now and would provide additional supply to meet increasing demand 10 years down the road. That's not a small thing.

There are other, more important steps that Congress should take, too.

Chief among those is renewing the $500 million in investment and production tax credits slated to expire Dec. 31. In a meeting with the Editorial Board this summer, members of the Blue Green Alliance said that 100,000 jobs could be lost at the end of the year if the tax incentives and credits aren't extended.

A pending federal bill would extend for another eight years investment tax credits for installing solar energy and would extend for one year the production tax credit for producing wind power. It also would extend for three years credits for geothermal, wave energy and other renewables.

These credits matter. As an article by The Associated Press pointed out, the production tax credit for wind technology was allowed to expire in 2000, 2002 and 2004. Wind capacity installation dropped 93 percent, 73 percent and 77 percent, respectively, in those three years from the previous year.

And the Solar Energy Industries Association told the AP that some 20 utility-scale solar power plants, together capable of producing power for a million homes, are at risk because those credits have not been renewed.

In addition, federal renewable energy standards should be stepped up, and increased use of biofuels — including moving to the next generation of biofuels — should be encouraged. In Wisconsin, the Governor's Task Force on Global Warming has recommended a series of measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 22 percent by 2022 and 75 percent by 2050. Those are reasonable goals that should be adopted by Congress.

The federal government also needs to set a clear cost for carbon emissions, either by taxing such emissions directly or establishing a cap-and-trade system that would cap emissions and reduce them over time by allowing parties to trade emission credits. Such a system was proposed by the governor's task force and is supported by both presidential candidates. Whether such a system is better than a straight tax on emissions deserves a thorough debate, but either way, affected industries need stability on the regulatory front.

And the nation needs to make sure it has the infrastructure to make this all work. As an example, the Great Plains states have lots of wind but not enough transmission lines to move that wind power to other states.

All of this requires heavy lifting on the part of Congress, and it probably all can't be done in the next several weeks. But Congress could get a good start by approving a reasonable measure that would, among other things, increase domestic drilling where appropriate, but more important, renew those investment and production tax credits.

REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL.

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