By Alan K. Ota, CQ Staff

An old hand at leading GOP insurrections, former Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. (1979-1999), offered his support to the House GOP recess energy protest on Wednesday and urged Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and John McCain of Arizona to cut a deal on their own bipartisan energy compromise.

Although the House of Representatives is not in session, some Republicans have been on the House floor, and just outside the chamber, mounting their protest, claiming that allowing expanded offshore oil drilling would lower gas prices.

“Sen. Obama, as the leader of the Democratic Party, should pick up the phone this morning and convince [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi and [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ] that they should come here and recall the Congress,” Gingrich said. He said that Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, and his GOP rival, McCain, “should find five things they agree on energy, and offer a joint bill . . . and say let’s pass it before the conventions. If they walked in with five things, they’d pass it before the conventions.”

He added that he doubted Obama would break ranks with his party to cut a deal: “He’s now entrapped between the anti-energy left, led by [former Vice President Al] Gore and Pelosi and Reid and the pro-energy Democrats, who understand that they’re not going to survive if they are the party that’s anti-energy.

Gingrich said he believed Pelosi, D-Calif., had mishandled the GOP revolt last week by adjourning abruptly on August 1 and cutting off Republicans who wanted to continue giving special order speeches. “As a former Speaker, I can sympathize with occasional moments when you make a mistake. If Speaker Pelosi allowed them to do all their special orders on Friday, they would have left in exhaustion around 10 o’clock Friday night. And in one of those classic abuses of power, where the arrogance of power just infuriates a free people, by adjourning abruptly . . . she so enraged the Republicans.

“I watched both Speaker [Thomas P. “Tip”] O’Neill and Speaker [Jim] Wright do this. And it has a galvanizing effect. . . . She made a huge mistake on Friday.”

Nadeam Elshami, a Pelosi spokesman, declined to comment specifically on Gingrich’s assessment, but said: “Republicans in large numbers voted against 13 Democratic initiatives that would lower prices, expand domestic supply and help consumers. They must explain to their constituents why they continue to oppose these energy solutions, while pushing a ‘Drill Only’ plan that benefits Big Oil and not the American people.”

Gingrich told GOP lawmakers who are demanding a special session to deal with energy legislation that he believed they were gaining momentum in winning Democratic allies and said he believed they would get the vote they want on an expansion of oil drilling in September. He said Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, would be able to force a vote in September, with or without the support of Speaker Pelosi, who has sought to focus attention on Democratic measures such as a proposal to release some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Gingrich now heads his own 527 political advocacy group, American Solutions for Winning the Future, and has been leading a drive to collect 1.4 million citizen signatures on a petition to support the simple motto: “Drill here, drill now and pay less.”

“I believe there will come a point in early September when there will be an up or down vote in the House. And I think the advice that her (Pelosi) advisers were giving out to Democrats back home is in the end very, very bad advice.” Gingrich said.

Gingrich told reporters afterward that Obama and McCain could play an important role in ending the long standoff on a number of stalled proposals aimed at reducing the high price of gasoline and developing alternative fuels.

“My prediction is that by September, the Democrats will split into a pro-energy faction and an anti-energy faction, and that the Republicans and the pro-energy Democrats will be an absolute majority on the House floor, and that they will pass something,” Gingrich said.

“We’ve already seen Sen. Obama begin to move a little closer towards maybe, possible, some day, eventually, if necessary, being in favor of more energy,” Gingrich said. “In the face of McCain, he’s made a clear decisive change.”

Gingrich added that the dispute over GOP demands for floor votes on oil and gas drilling could complicate efforts by Democrats to move a continuing resolution when Congress returns to extend funding for federal programs beyond the end of the fiscal year. He said that could lead to a potential government shutdown similar to the one he took part in as speaker in 1995 and early 1996, the Republican majority and President Bill Clinton could not agree on spending bills.