The late House Speaker Tip O'Neill famously said all politics is local.

Unfortunately, this condition can have a deleterious effect on national policy, as it did on the energy bill the U.S. House passed Friday.

The House version would provide some of the policies the United States needs to reduce its dependence on foreign oil and lessen an energy crunch when demand exceeds supply.

But it leaves out some of the more obvious and easy steps, primarily raising the mileage standard on cars, light trucks and SUVs.

The Senate version raises fleet mileage requirements to 35 mpg, about a 40 percent increase.

The conference committee should include this necessary conservation measure, despite what one powerful but selfish Democratic committee chairman might want.

Republicans are right when they charge that the House bill does nothing to increase the production of oil and gas in the United States.

Democrats correctly counter that oil companies need no government incentive when the price of oil is above $70 per barrel and trending upward.

However, oil companies desperately need access to oil reserves.

The United States needs to open up exploration off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts - to increase domestic production and cut reliance on wells in the Gulf of Mexico vulnerable to hurricanes.

The House can be proud that its

bill requires power producers to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind.

Texas, rich in wind, would particularly benefit, but so would the nation, which needs to reduce its carbon footprint and curb global warming.

The House also deserves credit for encouraging research into biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol, both more efficient than making ethanol from corn.

The House acted properly in not requiring greater use of inefficiently made ethanol as a vehicle fuel.

Now that both houses of Congress have passed energy packages, a conference committee will try to craft compromise legislation in the fall.

That legislation, should be fashioned to place the national need for more energy, alternative sources and conservation above parochial interests that ill-serve all Americans in the end.