After negotiations with key Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday he was prepared to seek a conference with the House on energy policy legislation.

“The Speaker wants to go to conference. I want to go to conference,” Reid, D-Nev., said on the floor Friday. “We know we can’t do a bill unless we include the Republicans in it.”

Republican leaders temporarily blocked Reid’s effort to move the bill (HR 3221) to conference, but only because they could not reach all GOP senators to be sure no one objected. With no roll call votes planned Friday, most senators had already left Washington.

Still, no objections were expected and Reid said he would try again next week to get the formalities out of the way.

Sen. Pete V. Domenici, R-N.M., ranking minority member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, wrote Thursday to Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., calling for a conference.

Reid is seeking unanimous consent to bring the House-passed bill (HR 3221) to the floor, strike the text and replace it with Senate-passed language (HR 6), setting the stage for a conference.

The talks will not be easy, he conceded. There are significant differences between the two bills,

The House-passed measure contains a renewable-energy mandate, while the Senate version would require auto manufacturers to boost their fleet average for all types of vehicles to 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

There also are tax issues in the mix.

“So it’s going to take some mathematical moving around to get this done,” Reid observed.