Democrats Offer Alternative to Republican Energy Plan

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

WASHINGTON, May 17 — Senate Democrats on Wednesday fueled the debate over rising gas prices by introducing an energy bill they said would do more to wean the country off foreign oil than the plan advanced three weeks ago by Republicans.

The bill would cut domestic oil consumption to 12 million barrels a day in 2020 from about 20 million barrels, its supporters say. It calls for expanding the use of alternative fuels for vehicles, in part by requiring more federally owned vehicles to use them, and by ensuring that more service stations sell them.

The bill would also revoke subsidies for the oil industry, increase subsidies for the renewable fuels industry and restore aid to low-income Americans struggling to pay energy bills.

"We need lower gas prices and energy independence," the minority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said at a news conference with nine other Democrats. "Republican leaders have proposed the same old solution: drill, drill, drill. But drill, drill, drill is not going to deliver the results we need."

For more on this story read online at the New York Times.