A four-term Democratic senator from Louisiana, he pushed for nuclear power and ending the nation’s reliance on foreign oil.
J. Bennett Johnston Jr., a Louisiana Democrat and four-term United States senator who helped shape America’s energy and science policies in an era of rising concerns over the perils of nuclear power and the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, died in Arlington, Va., on Tuesday. He was 92.
His death was confirmed by his son J. Bennett Johnston III.
One of a new breed of polished Southern Democrats that included Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Mr. Johnston served in the Senate from 1972 to 1997, a tenure that included Middle East conflicts that threatened American oil imports, and nuclear licensing and safety changes in the aftermath of the nation’s worst nuclear accident, the partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979.
A target of environmentalists’ wrath, he favored more nuclear power plants, although public safety concerns limited new construction for decades. But he won fights to sharply expand oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the major offshore petroleum-producing area for the United States, and sponsored laws to let coastal states share federal revenue from offshore drilling.
As chairman or a ranking member of the energy and natural resources committee from 1973 to 1996, he was involved in virtually all Senate energy legislation, from rewriting the nuclear licensing provisions of federal law to developing synthetic fuels and deregulating oil and natural gas prices to spur production. It was a delicate balancing act for a senator from a state with ferociously competing energy interests.
In a state also renowned for flamboyant politicians like Huey and Earl Long and corrupt rogues like former Gov. Edwin W. Edwards, Mr. Johnston was a notable exception — a quiet intellectual with finely honed political judgments who grasped the technical intricacies of energy exploration and production and could also lucidly discuss astrophysics, subatomic particles and tennis serves.
A trim, athletic man with receding hair, Mr. Johnston — an inveterate apple muncher who was said to be the Senate’s most avid tennis player in his 50s — was an approachable, friendly man, responsive to questions and easy to talk to or negotiate with.
