Congress is likely to come up emptyhanded on a broad energy bill this year and could return home for the November elections without consensus on new offshore drilling, New Mexico Sens. Pete Domenici and Jeff Bingaman said Friday.

"It's too late to have any big impact -- we're not going to get a comprehensive bill this year," Domenici, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in an interview.

Republicans and Democrats in Congress spent part of the summer debating whether to open more offshore areas to increased oil and gas drilling, approve clean-energy tax incentives and enact other measures to increase production and conservation. But the House and Senate are still not close to agreement on key elements of a bill, and time is running out on the 110th Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday he will allow some votes on offshore drilling proposals next week, but Domenici said he doesn't expect them to be expansive enough for Republicans to support.

"There is not a bill I've seen that I could tell the Republicans to go for," Domenici said.

Congress is expected to adjourn in late September or early October to allow members who are up for re-election time to go home and campaign before the Nov. 4 general election.

"There are a lot of steps in the legislative process and there is not a whole lot of time left so (Domenici's) skepticism may be well-founded," Democrat Bingaman, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a subsequent interview Friday. "There are still some issues that are pretty contentious."

Bingaman did offer a glimmer of hope for the wind and solar energy industries. He said Congress is working on a separate package to approve tax incentives for both industries that expire in January.

"That's one area where we're close to having agreement on what to do," Bingaman said. "A package of tax extenders is currently being negotiated. There is progress being made."

He said he supports expanded offshore drilling and will offer a bill to do it next week. But Democrats and Republicans can't agree on details. Like Bingaman, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opposes Republican efforts to divert new offshore oil and gas revenues to coastal states instead of into the federal treasury.

Domenici and Bingaman spoke Friday in separate interviews with the Journal during an all-day energy summit in Washington that convened experts from the private sector, think tanks and academia.

Most of the dozen experts who spoke at the summit agreed that stabilizing American energy supplies -- and reducing gasoline prices -- will take a variety of strategies, including more domestic oil and gas production, greater investment in renewable energy sources, advanced clean coal research, expanded nuclear power and converting the U.S. vehicle fleet to include more electric-powered cars.