June 17 (Bloomberg) -- A Senate energy panel approved legislation that would require utilities to get as much as 15 percent of their power from renewable sources and open more of the eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 15- 8 today for the measure, which would also expand oversight of oil, natural gas and power markets.

“None of us, given the chance to be a single author, would have written the bill that we have written in this committee,” said Democratic Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the committee’s chairman. “It’s one which will help not only to enable us to produce new sources of energy but to use our energy sources more wisely.”

The Senate energy plan doesn’t include requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions because a different committee has jurisdiction over that issue. The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved legislation last month that would require a 17 percent reduction in emissions by 2020, in addition to imposing a renewable power requirement.

“Despite all the warts that are contained in this legislation, I think we are at a worthwhile place,” Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, the top Republican on the committee, said before the vote. Murkowski supported drilling provisions in the measure and said she had doubts about the renewable electricity mandate.

President Barack Obama has called for the nation to get 25 percent of its power from renewable sources such as wind and solar by 2025. The Senate plan calls for a 15 percent requirement by 2021. About a quarter of that could be offset by gains in energy efficiency.

‘Pitiful’ Standard

Some environmental groups have pushed for a more aggressive renewable electricity standard than the Senate panel approved today. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have their own programs to encourage renewable energy.

“This bill’s renewable standard is so pitiful that it wouldn’t require any new renewable energy development beyond business as usual,” said Marchant Wentworth of the Union of Concerned Scientists, based in Cambridge Massachusetts, in a statement today.

A Democratic amendment, sponsored by Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, would open drilling 45 miles (72 kilometers) off the coast of Florida. It alters 2006 legislation that put in place a moratorium preventing drilling in a buffer zone that varied from 100 miles to 235 miles off the coast until 2021.

Market Manipulation

Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, added a provision to the legislation that would require the Energy Information Administration to collect information on how much oil is held in offshore tankers by the 50 largest oil traders.

Sanders said he believes speculators have been driving up oil prices since the start of the year. Crude oil futures prices are up more than 50 percent from the start of the year.

Before the committee vote, Sanders said he was “very reluctantly” voting for the measure. “This is an extremely weak bill and the only reason I am voting for it is to see if we can strengthen it on the floor. He called the renewable electricity standard “totally inadequate.”

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would get the ability to freeze the assets of any entity suspected of manipulation of natural gas or wholesale power markets under the measure.

Amaranth Advisors

The provision, sponsored by Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, was prompted in part by the agency’s case against Amaranth Advisors LLC, a hedge fund accused of manipulating natural gas markets. The company reached a settlement with FERC staff, which the five commissioners rejected in February. The hedge fund collapsed after more than $6 billion in wrong-way bets on gas markets in 2006.

The energy regulator would also gain additional authority to grant permits for interstate power lines over state objections.

Murkowski added language to increase to $30 billion from $18 billion the government loan guarantees for a pipeline that could bring natural gas from Alaska to the rest of the U.S.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. energy company, announced plans last week to help TransCanada Corp. finance and build a $26 billion, 1,700-mile pipeline. ConocoPhillips and BP Plc have a rival pipeline proposal.

The measure also would ease provisions restricting the import of Canadian oil sands, and establish a Clean Energy Development Bank to finance investments in energy projects.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tina Seeley in Washington at tseeley@bloomberg.net: Daniel Whitten in Washington at dwhitten@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 17, 2009 12:35 EDT