As you may know by now, the Senate just voted not to cut off debate on the energy bill sent over yesterday by the House, so a final vote on the bill itself will have to wait a while.

Predictions from the murky crystal ball:

We thought that Friday's cloture vote wouldn't come until Saturday, because cloture motions typically need to "ripen" (wait for 30 hours) before they can be voted on. Silly us. Rules in the Senate are largely a matter of custom, and under "unanimous consent" or UC, they can do just about anything. Since it was foregone that the vote would fail, both sides were fine with proceeding to it right away, under UC.

Several senators who voted against cloture said on the Senate floor they were open to compromise.

We said last week that further floor action wouldn't come before Thursday or Friday. In the words of Ron Zeigler, President Nixon's press secretary, that statement is now inoperative. Maybe the crystal was smudged, maybe it needed a tune-up.

A new version of the bill will emerge this week. Quite likely it will have fuel efficiency as the centerpiece, with a renewable fuels standards as a side dish. Anything else it contains or does not contain will be based on what Senate leadership thinks can be passed. Check the Vegas odds board for your favorite provisions.

The bill will then go over to the House, where, lightened of some former measures, it should be passed by an even higher margin than last week. Some will say the energy legislation doesn't go far enough, and they're probably right. But it will be the best that this Congress can pass, and will contain the first real strengthening of fuel economy standards in 32 years, an improvement that has the backing of most auto manufacturers, the UAW, military experts, environmentalists, members of the faith community, and state and local governments.

At that point it will be up to President Bush. Quite likely the bill will give him everything that he's been saying he wants in energy policy, and not much he's spoken against.

That is, until now. Now it seems that nothing is good enough, and in last week's statement of administration policy, the president managed to find fault with basically most of the bill. Check it out, at whitehouse.gov/omb/legislative/sap/110-1/hr6sap-h_2.pdf.

Would he put politics above policy? Or breaking a bipartisan congressional achievement over breaking America's oil addiction? I know we'd be shocked.

Tom Bullock

Ohio representative,

National Environmental Trust

WE'RE ALL TO BLAME

Contrary to Milan Paurich's impression of Redacted (Film Picks, Dec. 5), I was deeply moved by the messages in this film: Violence perpetuates violence, war often breeds sexual violence, and truth is war's first casualty.

Director Brian DePalma contributes a vivid account of the brutality and gore of our country's current invasion of Iraq. The US/British war based on deception, prejudice and a maniacal lust for power and profit is difficult for the self-righteous to accept as being truly evil. Paurich is either in denial about our responsibility as taxpayers and citizens to resist and curtail illegal, immoral actions of our government, or he just doesn't want the bombs and the blood to pour on his Christmas parade.

Redacted is the only Christmas-time truth worth telling when people don't have the courage to admit that the US taxpayers are complicit in the murder and devastation of the Iraqi people and their civilization.

Don Bryant

North Royalton

TWO AMERICAS, TWO JUSTICE SYSTEMS

When reading the crime and punishment section of my local newspaper (the business pages), I'm continually reminded of the gross inequities inherent in our criminal justice system.

Virtually every day there are reports of CEOs and directors of major corporations who are charged with malfeasance, misappropriation of funds and grand larceny - on a grand scale.

More often than not, those charged with such offenses end up making a settlement or plea agreement. Usually, those agreements result in fines and/or monetary settlement of lawsuits that don't even begin to compensate victims of their crimes. Moreover, having agreed to huge multi-million-dollar settlements, there is usually a denial that there was any wrongdoing. To add further insult to injury, few are ever incarcerated.

If you hold up a 7-Eleven, and you're caught, you'll have the cuffs snapped on your wrists, get thrown into the slammer and almost surely will do time. If you are one of those "pillars of society" who steals hundreds of millions of dollars from their companies and stockholders, cause job losses in the thousands and financially ruin many lives, you're more apt to first die from natural causes than you are to spend any time in prison.

There seems to be a double standard of justice in this country when it comes to punishment for theft: one for the landed gentry; one for the "common criminal."

Paul G. Jaehnert

Vadnais Heights, Minnesota