As GOP lawmakers return today for a third straight week of speeches to tourists after the summer adjournment of the Congress, Democrats are making it clear there will be votes on an energy plan after the political conventions.
It just may not be exactly what the Republicans want to vote on.

On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave the Democratic radio address and laid out plans to have the House vote on energy legislation in September.

She will include plans for expanded offshore drilling, but she will also put a lot of other stuff in there that certainly won't pass the election year taste test for many Republicans.

One of those plans would be to get back unpaid royalties that oil companies got out of paying because of some bureaucratic bungling by the Interior Department.

Usually, there is a provision that says if oil gets over a certain price, then royalties to the federal government kick in.  But the feds either forgot or just plain didn't include that language.

The contracts were set up that way to entice oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico when oil prices were at historic lows.

Democrats argue the feds have lost billions in revenue, and so they want oil companies to pay what critics say is owed to the federal treasury.

Oh yeah, and the money from that would have to go to renewable energy projects.

Like the GOP is going to accept that one or a number of other things that Democrats will probably put in that plan.

You never know, it could lead to a deal in the Senate, but I wouldn't bet on it.