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Lawmakers will not have enough support when Congress reconvenes to restore a complete moratorium on offshore drilling, American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard said on Friday.

“I don’t think there are enough votes in Congress to reinstate the blanket moratorium as it has existed before,” Gerard told reporters at his first media round-table in Washington, D.C., as the new head of the lobbying group.

After a heated debate between Democrats and Republicans over oil exploration, Congress allowed the 27-year-old ban on drilling in most U.S. coastal areas to expire in October.

With gasoline prices rising above $4 a gallon this summer, Gerard said there is enough public support for expanding domestic production to keep lawmakers from restoring the ban.

He expects there will be a robust discussion, however, over whether to impose additional restrictions on U.S. energy production when Congress returns in January.

An aide to Democratic President-elect Barack Obama has said Obama will likely reverse an executive order by President George W. Bush allowing drilling in fragile lands in Utah.

Gerard, however, warns against imposing restrictions on offshore drilling. In particular, he pushed against the 50-mile buffer zone that was part of energy legislation that passed the House of Representatives before Congress adjourned.

He pointed out that beyond 12 to 13 miles from shore any energy equipment would not be visible to people on the coasts, and that a large buffer zone could significantly limit energy production. Also, he said the oil industry has demonstrated over time it can operate safely offshore.

“That’s yesterday’s debate,” Gerard said. “The technology is there to protect the environment and the technology is there to bring these resources to the market for benefit of all Americans.”

Gerard recently replaced Red Cavaney, who left the organization at the end of October, as president of API. Before coming to the institute, Gerard served as president of the American Chemistry Council.

Although Gerard said he is optimistic about working with the new Congress, he said it is too soon to know whether his group will be able to convince lawmakers not to support a windfall profits tax on the oil industry.

During his campaign, President-elect Barack Obama said he supported a five-year windfall tax on excessive profits of large oil companies.

Gerard said that the government should focus on gaining revenue through making more energy available, instead of punitive measures against companies.

Jurors were offered conflicting views of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens during a four-week corruption trial: a cantankerous but credible senator who didn’t know he was being lavished with free gifts, or a sour-faced, scheming one who thought he knew how to quietly get undisclosed freebies.

Stevens completed three days of testimony Monday with lawyers still trying to convince jurors of their portrait of the longtime Republican lawmaker, who has been charged with lying on financial disclosure forms about $250,000 in renovations and other gifts he received from oil services contractor VECO Corp.

Closing arguments were scheduled for Tuesday and jurors were to begin deliberating Wednesday.

Stevens has said he never sought gifts and wouldn’t even accept a free lunch, much less the expensive remodeling services that changed his A-frame Girdwood, Alaska cabin into a large, modern home with a sauna, wine cellar and wraparound porches. He and his wife Catherine paid for everything they knew of, Stevens insisted.

“Catherine paid for the work that was done at our house, she paid the bills and that’s all there is to it,” said Stevens, the last words he left the jury with before leaving the stand.

But prosecutors say he had a history of accepting gifts — including an expensive massage chair in his Washington, D.C. home — and omitting them from the financial disclosure forms. Stevens has insisted repeatedly that the chair was a loan from a friend, although it has been in his house for seven years.

“How is that not a gift?” prosecutor Brenda Morris asked.

“He bought that chair as a gift, but I refused it as a gift,” Stevens said. “He put it there and said it was my chair. I told him I would not accept it as a gift. We have lots of things in our house that don’t belong to us.”

Playing to the jury, Morris appeared confused. “So, if you say it’s not a gift, it’s not a gift?” she said.

“I refused it as a gift,” Stevens replied. “I let him put it in our basement at his request.”

Once an untouchable political force, Stevens faces a tough re-election fight and he’s hoping for an acquittal before Election Day. Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, a Democrat, has sought to capitalize on Stevens’ legal woes in the tight race.

Morris grilled Stevens repeatedly about things VECO founder Bill Allen added to the senator’s Girdwood residence, including a new porch, a balcony, a fully stocked tool chest, a gas grill, a steel staircase, rope lighting, a generator and leather furniture.

Stevens has said he didn’t ask for those things, and even tried to get Allen to take them away. Stevens added Monday that Allen, who has pleaded guilty to bribing state lawmakers, “stole” the furniture out of his cabin and replaced it with the leather furniture.

“Why didn’t you call the police when Bill Allen stole your furniture?” Morris quickly asked.

“It never crossed my mind to call the police at that time. I might now,” Stevens said.

The gifts and the Girdwood renovations are at the heart of Stevens’ corruption trial. The Alaska Republican appeared as his own star witness, trying to convince jurors that he paid every bill he received for his 2000 home renovation project and didn’t know he was getting any freebies from the oil services corporation.

Stevens said he saw a clear difference between getting help from Allen and getting help from VECO. “One’s a human, one’s a corporation, ma’am,” he said.

“You’re saying you don’t have to disclose gifts from a human?” Morris replied. Stevens replied again that he didn’t get any gifts.

Though gruff, Stevens kept his temper in check despite needling from Morris. Through back-and-forth jousting with Morris, the senator did confirm for jurors the combative and cantankerous reputation of a man known in the Senate for his “Incredible Hulk” neckties.

“Now, you go right ahead with your questions, miss,” Stevens shot at Morris once.

And when Morris asked him why an expensive fish statue Stevens has said is intended for his memorial foundation is sitting on his front porch, Stevens replied icily: “Ms. Morris, I have not died yet.”

Sen. John McCain’s self-portrait as a bold leader willing to set politics aside to save an endangered financial bailout plan took a pounding Thursday from top Democrats and even some fellow Republicans.

His efforts to re-energize his presidential campaign will partly turn on who wins the public relations battle, destined to play out for days.

Top Democrats in Congress ridiculed McCain’s claim Wednesday that negotiations were going nowhere, necessitating his hasty return to Washington to intervene while suspending his campaign.

“It was somewhat stunning” to receive McCain’s phone call with that message, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Talks were proceeding fine without him, Reid said.

Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the chief House Democrat on the bill, said, “all of a sudden, now that we are on the verge of making a deal, John McCain airdrops himself to help us make the deal.”

Even the House’s Republican leader, John Boehner of Ohio, passed up a chance to praise McCain’s leadership powers shortly before the two men met in the Capitol at midday Thursday. Asked by reporters if McCain could help win House Republican votes for the proposed package, Boehner shrugged and said, “Who knows?”

Other Republicans gave McCain more credit. “They got something done this morning only because McCain came back,” said Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. But DeMint later called the proposal “a trillion-dollar Band-Aid that does not contain a single item that will stimulate our economy.”

President Bush’s biggest worry is House Republicans, many of whom seemed unimpressed Thursday with McCain’s heightened interest. Several said it was essential that both McCain and his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, back the bailout plan together.

“If McCain and Obama would stand together and take this off the table” as a sharply partisan issue, then wary House Republicans might get on board, said Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.

Framing the issue in those bipartisan terms, however, complicates McCain’s bid to differentiate himself from Obama on leadership issues.

In truth, McCain has faced a no-win situation for days. To support the bailout or a similar plan would put him at odds with millions of voters and many House Republicans at a time his campaign is sliding in the polls. Also, McCain has struggled to distance himself from the unpopular Bush, and embracing the administration’s plan would clearly not help.

Obama has an easier path. No one will accuse him of being a Bush clone even if he ends up siding with the administration on this issue. And Democrats in general are more receptive to government regulation of powerful institutions.

McCain’s other option was worse. Opposing the main thrust of Bush’s plan would have opened him to fierce accusations of walking away from a national crisis. And if a congressional impasse triggered more Wall Street catastrophes, as the administration said it would, the criticism would have been still worse.

McCain’s only real option was to say, “I’m the leader, I’m going to put country first,” said Republican consultant John Feehery.

McCain tried to do that late Wednesday. Going before TV cameras shortly before Obama did, he signaled his likely support for some version of the costly plan and urged Bush to convene a meeting including Obama. Bush did so, giving McCain and his backers a chance to claim some leadership credit.

“It seemed like this deal yesterday was very close to dead,” McCain adviser Mike DuHaime told Fox News on Thursday. “I think you’ve seen tremendous progress since he made that announcement.”

McCain met separately with House and Senate Republicans in the Capitol Thursday. He did not attend meetings where the bailout legislation was being hashed out, and some rank-and-file lawmakers saw little impact from his visit.

“What do I know?” said Rep. Tom Reynolds, R-N.Y., when asked later about the affect of McCain’s detour to Washington. Perhaps, he said, the combined efforts of McCain and Obama would give enough political cover to wavering lawmakers to bring more votes to the bailout package.

Meanwhile, Democrats scoffed at McCain’s Wednesday night claim that “no consensus has developed” behind the administration proposal, making his intercession important.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters that McCain called her and urged the White House meeting because “nothing was happening and there was no progress being made on all of this.”

“And I said, ‘Well, Senator, I have good news for you.’” Pelosi said. “‘Quite a bit has been done.’”

Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, previously had called on McCain to take a stand on the bailout proposal. By the time McCain called him on Wednesday, Reid told reporters Thursday, progress was well under way.

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said his boss gave McCain a cool reception. It included reading to him a statement that Reid had just released criticizing McCain’s plans. “We need leadership, not a campaign photo-op,” said the statement that Reid read to its intended target.

Even if McCain fully embraces a bailout package, many Republican candidates elsewhere on ballots will not go along. Rep. Ray LaHood, an Illinois Republican who is retiring, said he probably will vote for the bailout legislation that eventually emerges.

But the Republican running to replace him, LaHood said, “is running against it. Everyone’s running against it.”

Offshore oil drilling, which has dominated energy debates in the presidential campaign, is now coming to the Senate.

The House late Tuesday approved on a 236-189 vote legislation that would open waters 50 miles off the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to oil and natural gas development — if the adjacent states agree to go along.

The legislation now goes to the Senate, where Democratic leaders are expected to mold it to their liking in the next few days.

So far, the Senate has indicated it has no intention of going as far as the House in expanding offshore oil and gas drilling beyond the western Gulf of Mexico, where energy companies have been pumping oil and gas for decades.

At least two proposals being crafted in the Senate would allow drilling in some areas along the southern Atlantic from Virginia to Georgia. But the Pacific and remainder of the Atlantic seaboard would not be affected.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., also has said he would make way for a vote on a broader Republican drilling proposal that would allow states to opt for offshore exploration from New England to the Pacific Northwest and share in the royalties that are collected.

Congress has renewed bans on drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida annually for the past 26 years.

But expanded offshore drilling has become a mantra of GOP energy policy that has been felt in both presidential and congressional campaigns, even though lifting the drilling ban would have little if any impact on gasoline prices or produce any more oil for years.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain vowed at the recently concluded GOP convention to push for new offshore oil and natural gas drilling as delegates chanted “drill, baby, drill.” His Democratic rival, Barack Obama, also has said he supports more drilling as part of a broader energy package.

But in the Senate the issue of drilling remains divisive.

No matter what the proposal, it is expected to face a filibuster and no one has yet to predict with certainty that any drilling bill will garner the 60 votes needed to overcome such a roadblock.

The drilling measure passed late Tuesday in a largely party-line vote by the House is unlikely to survive the Senate.

President Bush, who has called for ending the offshore drilling bans, signaled he would veto the legislation if it reached his desk, arguing that it would stifle offshore oil development instead of increasing it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the bill “a new direction in energy policy … that will end our dependence on foreign oil” by shifting federal subsidies from promoting the oil industry to spurring development of alternative energy sources and energy efficiency.

The House measure would allow drilling in waters 50 miles from shore almost everywhere from New England to Washington state as long as a state agrees to go along with energy development off its coast. Beyond 100 miles, no state approval would be required. The drilling ban would remain in the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

But Republicans called the drilling measure a ruse to provide political cover to Democrats feeling pressure to support more drilling at a time of high gasoline prices.

“How much new drilling do we get out of this bill? It’s zero. Just zero,” declared House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio. “It’s a hoax on the American people. This is intended for one reason … so the Democrats can say we voted on energy.”

The bill would not share royalties from energy production with the adjacent states, which Republicans said would keep states from accepting any new drilling off their beaches. Republicans also cited Interior Department estimates that 88 percent of the 18 billion barrels of oil believed to be in waters now under drilling bans would remain off-limits because they are within the 50-mile protective coastal buffer.

The House-passed bill calls for rolling back nearly $18 billion in tax breaks over 10 years for the five largest oil companies and using the revenue for tax incentives to help commercialize alternative energy such as solar, wind and biomass, and programs that foster energy efficiency.

The bill also would require the president to make available oil from the government’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Pelosi said such a move is needed to drive down gasoline prices, although oil prices have dropped dramatically in recent weeks and many energy experts believe gasoline prices will fall as well after refineries recover from Hurricane Ike.

Democrats added a provision at the last minute that makes it a federal crime for oil companies with federal leases to provide gifts to government employees, a response to a recent sex and drug scandal involving the federal office that oversees the offshore oil royalty program and energy company employees.

The House bill also would:

_Provide tax credits for wind and solar energy industries, the development of cellulose ethanol and other biofuels.

_Require utilities nationwide to generate 15 percent of their electricity from solar, wind or other alternative energy sources.

_Give tax breaks for new energy efficiency programs, including the use of improved building codes, and for companies that promote their employees’ use of bicycles for commuting.

The Bush administration is facing a new headache, this time in Latin America, as two leftist governments it can’t ignore booted the U.S. ambassadors this week.

Simmering ideological tensions between President Bush and the populist presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela boiled over on Wednesday and Thursday in twin diplomatic spats that threaten U.S. counternarcotics operations in the region and possibly American energy supplies.

The administration says it wants to get along with the growing number of leftist leaders in the Western Hemisphere, but Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are having none of it, essentially responding with the time-honored insult: “Yankee, go home.”

Having chafed under U.S. pressure for reform and criticism of their unabashed fondness for arch-U.S. foe Fidel Castro, Morales and Chavez unloaded a torrent of anti-Bush rhetoric and suggested they won’t restore normal ties with Washington until a new administration takes over.

Perhaps encouraged by his mentor Chavez, who famously described Bush as the devil at the United Nations and has cultivated relations with U.S. antagonists in Cuba as well as Iran and more recently Russia, Morales on Wednesday expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg.

Morales, the former head of Bolivia’s coca growers union, accused Goldberg of conspiring to oust him with Bolivia’s conservative opposition, which is spearheading protests against his plans to redo the constitution and redirect natural gas revenues to the indigenous peoples.

“Without fear of the empire, I declare the U.S. ambassador ‘persona non grata,’” Morales said in a speech at the presidential palace.” “We don’t want separatists, divisionists.”

Washington called the allegations “baseless” and warned Thursday that the expulsion was a “grave error” that would badly damage U.S.-Bolivian ties. The State Department then declared Bolivia’s top envoy to the United States, Gustavo Guzman, “persona non grata.”

The situation deteriorated late Thursday when Chavez, who claims the Bush administration was behind a failed 2002 coup against him, followed suit, ordering U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela Patrick Duddy out of the country and recalling Venezuela’s envoy to the United States.

“They’re trying to do here what they were doing in Bolivia,” Chavez told a crowd during a televised rally, accusing Washington, which he also refers to as “the empire,” of again trying to oust him. “That’s enough … from you, Yankees,” he said, using a barnyard expletive.

U.S. officials in Washington and Caracas said they had received no formal notice of the step and declined to comment on how they would respond, especially since Chavez appeared to have beaten them to the reciprocal punch by recalling his ambassador before he could be expelled.

The escalating spats could prompt similar moves from others in the region, notably that of former Sandinista leader and current Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, to act in solidarity, throwing a wrench into U.S. policy and further dimming its influence in Latin America.

Yet, Washington has its hands full already with the increasingly emboldened Morales and Chavez and other problems in the region.

Despite having pumped billions of dollars into anti-drug programs in the Andes, the administration has little show for it, with the possible exception of Colombia where a conservative leader has bucked regional trends and supports Bush.

Bolivia, the world’s third-largest coca producer after Colombia and Peru, is key to U.S. counternarcotics efforts. It is also a major natural gas supplier to its neighbors, notably Brazil, whose leftist leader has taken a more moderate approach in his differences with Bush.

Venezuela, meanwhile, is the fourth-largest oil supplier to the United States, and in his speech Thursday Chavez threatened to cut off those crude shipments “if there’s any aggression against Venezuela.”

US President George W. Bush on Friday declared a state of emergency in Louisiana and Texas in the face of killer Hurricane Gustav, freeing up aid from Washington three years after Hurricane Katrina.

The move empowers federal authorities to lead all disaster relief efforts “to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe” in the states, the White House said.

Bush’s decision came three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf coast, killing 1,800 people.

The botched Washington response swamped the president’s approval ratings amid widespread criticism that he paid too little attention to the storm.

Gustav is forecast to slam the Gulf coast early Tuesday as a powerful Category Three hurricane with wind speeds of up to 130 miles (209 kilometers) per hour — the same force as Katrina when it slammed New Orleans in 2005.

President Bush appealed to Russia’s president Monday to ignore the advice of lawmakers and refrain from recognizing Georgia’s breakaway regions as independent.

The move came as the White House announced Vice President Dick Cheney would visit Georgia, a blast of support for an ally still reeling from its brief war with Russia.

Bush’s intervention reflected the deep stakes for Georgia, which is a former Soviet republic, and the broader U.S.-Russia relationship, as the fate of separatist Abkhazia and South Ossetia remained in flux.

Both houses of the Russian parliament voted unanimously to urge Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to recognize the two regions as independent. Medvedev did not immediately respond but has said Moscow would support the choice of the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

“I call on Russia’s leadership to meet its commitments and not recognize these separatist regions,” Bush said in a statement from Texas, where he is vacationing at his ranch.

“Georgia’s territorial integrity and borders must command the same respect as every other nation’s, including Russia’s,” the president said.

Bush said independence for the two regions would undercut the international attempt to resolve Georgia’s border disputes, a United Nations effort that Russia has supported.

Western countries warned Moscow that recognizing the breakaway regions of Georgia, an allied nation pressing for NATO membership, would prompt international denunciation.

But Medvedev signaled the criticism was of little concern to the Kremlin.

NATO needs Russia more than Russia needs NATO, Medvedev said, and it would be “nothing frightening” if the Western alliance were to sever all ties. NATO has suspended operations of the NATO-Russia Council over the Georgia crisis.

Cheney is heading abroad on Sept. 2 for stops in three former Soviet Republics — Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine — plus Italy.

“The vice president will be delivering the word of America’s support,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

Indeed, Cheney’s presence in the war zone is a clear sign to Russia of the U.S. resolve behind Georgia after the small country was pummeled by a Russian military response. The vice president is the top-ranking U.S. official to visit Georgia since war erupted on Aug. 7.

Even before those hostilities began, Cheney’s trip to Italy, Georgia and Azerbaijan was in the works.

The vice president has no plans to visit Russia and speak directly with leaders there.

“That sends the message to the Kremlin that it risks international isolation,” said Andrew Kuchins, a Russia specialist at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. “Mr. Cheney is widely viewed by the Russian political elite as the toughest hawk on Russia in the Bush administration.”

Cheney’s trip is the latest in a flurry of activity in defense of Georgia, including an earlier trip by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The White House also announced Monday that the U.S. is sending an interagency delegation to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to assess the country’s vast reconstruction needs.

Catching much of the world off guard, war erupted as Georgia launched an artillery barrage targeting the separatist province of South Ossetia. Russian forces repelled the offensive and responded with tremendous force, attacking deep into Georgia.

Yet questions remain about what actions, if any, the U.S. will take against Russia.

The Pentagon has ruled out a military response. Cheney’s office has used tough rhetoric, saying “Russian aggression must not go unanswered.”

“It hasn’t gone unanswered. In fact, I’d say it’s been loudly answered,” Fratto said Monday.

“I don’t think there’s any question that Russia’s reputation has suffered since it took these disproportionate military steps in Georgia,” Fratto added.

As for specific consequences, the White House is reviewing its “entire relationship” with Russia, Fratto said, but focusing now on how to support Georgia’s recovery.

Cheney will hold talks in Georgia with President Mikhail Saakashvili, and will meet with the respective presidents of the other countries he is visiting.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential hopeful, announced Monday that his wife, Cindy, was on her way to Georgia.

The unusual decision was seen as a sign of the senator’s support for Georgia. But it also could deflect attention from Michelle Obama, who was speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Monday in support of her husband, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Russia pulled the bulk of its troops and tanks out of Georgia on Friday under a cease-fire brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but built up its forces in and around South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It also left military posts inside Georgia proper.

“There’s no question that Russia hasn’t lived up to the cease-fire agreement,” Fratto said, a point Russia disputes. The White House says the presence of large numbers of Russian troops and checkpoints are signs that Russia remains in violation.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said on Friday that serious negotiations in world trade talks should resume in September to see whether a deal is still possible this year.“There are quite a number of outstanding issues and therefore I encouraged the director general to convene senior officials sooner rather than later,” Schwab told reporters by telephone after a meeting with World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy.

Schwab said a deal in the nearly seven-year-old Doha round of world trade talks was “still conceivable” this year, despite a major collapse in the negotiations last month in Geneva.

“But it depends largely on the seriousness of purpose, commitment, flexibility of the key players, and grandstanding isn’t going to do it,” she said.

The nearly seven-year-old Doha round suffered a major setback last month when trade ministers from around 30 key WTO countries and the European Union failed again to agree on terms for cutting farm subsidies and tariffs and opening markets around the world to more manufactured goods trade.

The meeting collapsed when the United States was unable to bridge differences with China and India over the terms of a “special safeguard mechanism” to help developing countries protect their farmers from a surge in imports.

Lamy traveled to New Delhi earlier this month to explore possible avenues for restarting the talks.

“We all recognize there is a need, a legitimate need for a safeguard to address real surges and real emergencies,” Schwab said. But “if misused or miswritten or abused (it) could end up having a devastating effect on global trade,” she said.

Most of the day-to-day negotiations in the long-running trade round have been done by senior officials based in Geneva, with trade ministers gathering only rarely to try to make major decisions — and usually without much success.

INDIA’S ROLE

India’s role in the latest collapse has raised skepticism in the U.S. business community that New Delhi is really interested in a deal.

Schwab did not address that directly, but said perhaps the most important purpose of a meeting of senior officials would be to “give us a chance to test the seriousness of purpose of key players — whether they are there to engage and solve problems or whether it’s just a superficial political exercise.”

The United States is prepared to go to Geneva with new ideas for resolving the safeguard issue and other outstanding concerns, Schwab said.

Another key priority is to lock in the substantial progress negotiators did make last month and to “staunch the hemorrhaging” that has occurred in certain areas, such as manufactured goods, since the talks collapsed, she said.

“We need to get to Geneva as responsible WTO members to at least attempt to stop (the deterioration), to reverse that and to build back toward a more ambitious outcome,” Schwab said.

Most of the negotiations last month took place in the so-called G7 format which included the United States, the EU, India, China, Brazil, Japan and Australia.

Schwab seemed to indicate she thought a different group of countries would have a better chance of reaching agreement, but stopped short of saying who that group should include.

“Our sense is we need to have a representative group of countries that are ready, willing and able to engage in good faith to try to find an ambitious outcome to this round.

“And so I’ll leave it up to the director general to decide who those participants should be, but that will have a bearing on the chances of success,” Schwab said.

The Federal Communications Commission is proposing a ban on certain types of wireless microphones and has begun an investigation into how the industry markets its products.

Consumer groups alleged in a complaint last month that users of the ubiquitous microphones, including Broadway actors, mega-church pastors and karaoke DJs, are unwittingly violating FCC rules that require licenses for the devices.

The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition accused manufacturers of deceptive advertising in how they market and sell the microphones, which largely operate in the same radio spectrum as broadcast television stations.

The agency, in a notice released Thursday, said its enforcement bureau had opened an investigation. The FCC also is proposing that the sale and manufacture of some of the devices be banned.

“These actions would ensure that low power auxiliary operations do not cause harmful interference to new public safety and commercial wireless services in the band,” the agency said.

Most owners of the microphones are unaware that FCC rules require them to obtain a license.

Wireless microphones that operate in the same frequency bands as broadcast TV stations are intended for use in the production of TV or cable programming or the motion picture industry, according to FCC rules — not karaoke.

The FCC rarely enforces the licensing requirements on the microphones because there have been so few complaints. The microphones are programmed to avoid television channels.

But the looming transition to digital broadcasting, which takes place Feb. 17, has forced the FCC to act.

Channels 52 through 69 in the UHF television band, currently used by broadcasters, will be vacated as they convert to digital broadcasting. The government sold that section of airwaves for $19 billion in the FCC’s most successful auction in history. Other parts of that spectrum will be used by paramedics, police and firefighters.

The concern is that microphones that operate in that range may cause interference for the new licensees. It’s not known how many wireless microphones operate there, but Harold Feld, a lawyer for the consumer groups, says the total is likely more than 1 million, based on a trade journal estimate.

“These are the favored frequencies because they can be run at lower power and can be used for very high-quality audio,” Feld said.

Also raising the profile of the wireless microphone issue is the fact that the FCC is currently considering whether to allow companies to use the airwaves spaces between television channels for transmitting wireless broadband signals.

Consumer groups and some of the nation’s largest technology companies say these “white spaces” represent enormous potential to make broadband more accessible.

Microphone makers, Broadway theaters, the Grand Ole Opry and other users of the devices have objected to the FCC over future white-space devices because of fears about interference, even though many of them haven’t been granted government licenses for the microphones they’re using.

Shure Inc. of Niles, Ill., told The Associated Press last month that it had stopped selling microphones that use the potentially troublesome frequencies in November 2007. The company did not immediately return a call requesting comment Thursday, but has said it complies with all FCC requirements and “has never engaged in deceptive advertising practices.”

Urban consumers may have to pay twice as much as they do now to keep their kitchen fires burning, if a panel appointed by the prime minister has its way.

The high-powered committee, set up under former cabinet secretary BK Chaturvedi to review the finances of the country’s oil companies, has recommended limiting the sale of subsidised kerosene and cooking gas, or LPG, only to poor families.

That means any household with a monthly income of more than Rs 2,250 — that’s the Central government-defined poverty line — will cease to have access to subsidised cooking gas.

Currently, a cylinder of LPG costs Rs 614 to an oil marketing company, but it is sold in the market at half that price — Rs 336, the committee said in its report.

Government officials declined to comment as the report has yet to be made public.

The committee was set up in view of the crippling finances of state-owned oil companies, which have been hit hard because of a sharp surge in global crude prices.

“LPG is used mostly in middle-class homes where the argument for large subsidies is weak,” it said. It has proposed a gradual phasing out of such subsidies.

To begin with, the report said, the annual LPG entitlement of each household should be fixed at eight cylinders, six of which would be at subsidised rates, while the rest would cost more. If any family wants to buy more than eight a year, those should be made available at full market price.

The entitlement of six subsidised cylinders will be reduced to four, two and then zero, over a period of three years, it recommended.