Washington ? The Senate cleared the way Monday for legislation that would open 8.3 million protected acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

Senators voted 72-23 to limit debate, assuring a final vote on the bill later this week before senators depart for the summer recess. The bill’s supporters said they have the majority needed to push it through.

But a battle loomed with the House, which has approved a bill that would allow drilling far beyond the limited acreage in the central Gulf of Mexico. Negotiations to reconcile the two measures won’t begin until September.

The House would lift a quarter-century moratorium that has kept 85 percent of the nation’s coastal waters off-limits to energy companies from New England to Alaska. Senate Democrats and GOP moderates have vowed to block legislation that would jeopardize the drilling ban along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

Senate leaders have promised lawmakers from Florida and other coastal states that they would insist a final bill not go beyond the Gulf waters. The Senate legislation also would provide tens of millions of dollars to four Gulf states for coastal restoration.

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., one of the bill’s principal sponsors, bemoaned “the crazy idea that these resources should be locked up” when the country needs more domestic oil and gas supplies.

They’ve “been locked up for no good reason other than emotion,” he argued.

But Domenici said while he favors lifting the moratorium in some waters outside the Gulf he would “do everything in my power” to structure a final compromise with the House that can pass the Senate and avoid a filibuster. Senate Democrats have said that if the Senate measure is substantially changed they would block it by a filibuster if necessary.

The Senate bill would require the Interior Department to issue drilling leases within a year in 2 million acres known as Lease Area 181 and in another 6.3 million acres just south of it in the east-central Gulf of Mexico. Both areas have been off limits to energy companies and are believed to contain 1.2 billion barrels of oil and nearly 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to heat 6 million homes for 15 years.

To gain the support of Florida’s senators, no drilling would be allowed within 125 miles of Florida’s coast and in some areas the leases would be more than 230 miles from the state’s beaches.