WASHINGTON — Groping for a quick response to rising gasoline prices, Congress voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to order the Bush administration to stop depositing oil in a national reserve even though lawmakers predicted the impact for consumers would be modest at best.

“Is it a giant step? No,” said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan, D-N.D., a leading proponent of trying to influence the price of gasoline by redirecting supplies from the reserve to the commercial market. “But is it a step finally, at long last, in the right direction? It is.”

Despite initial resistance from the White House, the Senate voted 97-1 to stop putting 70,000 barrels of oil a day in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve through the remainder of this year; the House later approved a similar bill by a margin of 385-25.

The rapid action demonstrated how lawmakers’ anxiety about election-year howls from constituents who are straining the family budget at the gas pump. It also was a rare break between congressional Republicans and Mr. President Bush, as his usual allies voted en masse for the measure even though the White House has portrayed filling the reserve as a security issue and a way to guard against supply disruptions.

Skepticism

The administration reiterated skepticism about the impact of the bill, with one spokesman Scott M. Stanzel saying, on Tuesday, “There is no evidence that it will affect the price of oil or gasoline in a meaningful way.”

But he said Mr. Bush, who left on a trip to the Middle East, would not veto it. The margins were adequate to easily override him if he did.

In an interview conducted Tuesday for Yahoo and Politico, a Washington journal concentrating on politics, Mr. Bush said he was open to the idea of withholding oil deposits to try to encourage a price decrease at the pump. At the same time, he said, both the government and consumers must do more to address the rise in gasoline prices.

“The truth of the matter is that in order for there to be a substantial change, either consumers have to change their habits — which we’re encouraging through alternative tax of automobiles — or there has to be an increase of supply,” he said in the interview.

Estimates of the impact of suspending the deposits varied. Some economists predicted the impact would be negligible, while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, citing others who have studied the issue, said prices could drop 5 to 24 cents a gallon.

But Rep. Joe L. Barton of Ennis, Texas, the senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said the measure was meaningless.

“If all the members of the House would go out onto the steps and clap our hands three times and say, ‘Down prices, down prices,’ that would have as much impact as passing this bill,” he said.

In any event, lawmakers cautioned that any price decline from suspending the oil deposits would be temporary and that the plan pushed by Democrats was not a long-term solution.

“They have just a one-shot bill here, and it’s pretty good, but it isn’t an energy policy,” said Sen. Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the senior Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Domestic production

Before the Senate voted to halt the deposits into the reserve, which is now near 97 percent capacity, lawmakers voted 56-42 against a Republican energy proposal that pushed for greater domestic production of oil by opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other coastal areas to drilling.

The measure fell 18 votes short of the 60 needed, with six Republicans joining Democrats in opposing the measure.

Republicans said that they have been willing to back some investment in alternative energy and higher automobile mileage standards, but that Democrats refuse to consider tapping new domestic sources of oil as part of a broad energy approach.

“We have offered a plan that would increase supply,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. “And it would be from our own resources, so that America would not have to depend on foreign sources for our energy needs.”

But Sen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, said it was too late for “us to produce our way out of the problems that we now have.”

Mr. Reid said he hoped, within the next week, to start consideration of a Democratic energy plan.

But even if he can bring it to the floor, the proposal is unlikely to overcome a filibuster by Republicans objecting to new taxes on oil company profits to pay for alternative energy investment.