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One proposal has come out of Washington relating to soaring gasoline prices that looks like a sensible approach that actually could have a favorable impact should it gain approval.

A group of 20 senators early this month introduced the Domestic Energy Production Act, which would open up portions of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf for resource recovery.

In addition, the measure would remove oil shale prohibitions, streamline refinery permitting, encourage synthetic fuel production and encourage production of cellulosic ethanol.

Supporters contend the legislation would free Americans from unnecessary federal burdens that have been driving up energy prices and increasing the nation’s dependence on non-domestic energy sources. The disappointing aspect of the report is that so few senators appear to be willing to attack the real problems creating high energy prices.

Energy and environment experts from some leading research groups have applauded the proposal. They believe it would significantly reduce energy prices.

Noting that the legislation “is not perfect,” James M. Taylor, Heartland Institute senior fellow, said it would “go a long way toward reducing energy supply-demand pressures that are taking such a tremendous toll on consumers’ budgets and the economy as a whole.”

“The American people are tired of energy costs spiraling out of control while environmental special interest groups bully politicians into rendering America’s vast energy reserves off limits,” Taylor said.

Calling U.S. energy resources “the most plentiful in the world,” Taylor added that those resources “do us absolutely no good when politicians cave in to special interest groups and prohibit tapping into America’s enormous oil, natural gas and other energy deposits. It is time for politicians to assign human welfare a sensible priority.”

Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute said the act “seeks to remove some of the hurdles that prevent the increased supply of oil, natural gas and coal-based liquid fuel which is needed in order to get energy prices down.”

Most importantly, he added, it “seeks to reverse the ultimate in perverse incentives; the subsidies and biofuel mandates that are literally taking food out of the mouths of the hungry and pricing billions of people into poverty around the world.

“If done swiftly, the act might shorten the duration of the energy and fuel crisis brought to us by economically ignorant environmental policy.”

Green noted that economists and policy analysts repeatedly have “warned the Green movement that their campaign of strangling fossil fuel production would lead to higher energy costs, which would translate into higher transport-related food costs … After 40 years it has all come to a head, and the economic naivet? of Green policies has created a genuine disaster as energy prices soar, food prices soar and ecosystems are put under the plow for biofuels.”

Joining the chorus was Myron Ebell of Competitive Enterprise Institute who said: “Enacting legislation this year to open ANWR and OCS areas would not do anything to raise oil production immediately. However, it would lower crude oil prices immediately. With high demand and many potential threats to producers, there is a significant risk in oil prices. Opening up potentially huge new fields in a secure country would burst the speculative bubble.”

On the downside, Ebell continued, some other things in the bill “resurrect or continue failed policies of the past. Even a little bit of government central planning can have disastrous unintended consequences, as the current corn ethanol mandate is showing.”

Even with its imperfections, the Domestic Energy Production Act would be a drastic move toward an improved national energy policy. It also provides a glimmer of hope at least somebody in Washington is thinking about working on solutions to high energy prices that would actually work.

If enough concerned Americans let all Washington elected politicians know very clearly they want to see legislation of this type adopted, the group of 20 senators might get enough help to push it through.