WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted 94-0 yesterday to move ahead on legislation to curb speculation in oil markets. But any hope of bipartisanship to pass the bill is likely a mirage.

The Senate bill would require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to set limits on trading in oil markets by investors and speculators and close a loophole that allows speculators trading on the London oil market to escape scrutiny by U.S. regulators.

Democrats say the rapid increases in oil prices have coincided with big rises in trading on oil future markets and investment in oil by pension and hedge funds.

But the overwhelming majority to consider the bill only set up a debate in which both parties blame the other for not doing enough to combat this summer's $4-a-gallon gasoline prices.

Republicans want to offer an amendment to open the Outer Continental Shelf to oil drilling. GOP nominee-to-be John McCain is a new convert to such drilling, and opinion polls suggest voters are rallying around the idea.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., won't let the House or any of its committees or subcommittees allow a vote on offshore drilling. She and other Democrats say the oil companies should first look to areas offshore and in Alaska where drilling is already allowed.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., joined her yesterday, reversing course and calling off a vote planned for tomorrow on a bill funding the Interior Department rather than lose a committee vote to Republicans on lifting the moratorium on new drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.