06/22/07 by dugan
Yes, at least the Senate’s energy bill vote yesterday wasn’t about opening US coastlines to unlimited drilling and tearing up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to get at maybe six months’ worth of oil. Huge subsidies to coal were blocked. And it’s better to be moving forward with new auto standards rather than resisting a skid backward.
But the Senate energy bill passed yesterday still looks like an elephant that gave birth to a mouse.
A much better bill came close. If only Barbara Boxer hadn’t left for California for her granddaughter’s birth. If only Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota weren’t still recovering from a brain bleed. If.
Energy bill amendments that would have closed billions in Big Oil tax loopholes to pay for renewable fuels development were killed by three votes in the Senate, on a 57-36 vote. The measures needed 60 votes to pass, which is the case on any big, disputed measure because first the Senate votes on whether to stop debating and vote. That takes 60 votes, instead of the mere majority of 51. A minority can thus stop anything significant. Full roll call here.
First, kudos to the six Republicans who did vote for the measure, putting their constituents ahead of Big Oil. They were:
Norm Coleman of Minnesota
Mike Crapo of Idaho
Richard Lugar of Indiana
Pat Roberts of Kansas
Gordon Smith of Oregon
Olympia Snowe of Maine
And a big heap of scorn to Sen. Mary Landrieu, the only Democrat to vote against closing the loopholes. As another oil maven noted, she’s "wholly captive to oil," an industry that dominates Louisiana. For the rest of the "no’s" and nonvoters, plug in any other GOP senator.
But here’s where the "if only" comes in.
Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada voted "No" because he had to: seeing certain defeat, his vote against closing the loopholes preserved his right to revive the measures in the future. Only those voting against have the right to do so.
So. If Boxer and Johnson had been present, and the other 57 votes were firm (rather than symbolic because waffling senators knew it would lose), Reid could have voted "yes" and the loophole closings, intended to raise billions a year for renewables, would have survived in the final Senate bill. There’s also a slim chance that Sen. John McCain, who missed the vote because of his presidential campaign, might have voted yes.
And that’s how sausage gets made in Washington. An LA Times story recounts what’s in and what’s out.
As the bill moves into the House, the closure of loopholes, including an accounting trick that saves Big Oil $4.3 billion a year while cheating investors of dividends, may rise again. Oil royalty issues are not dead. It would have been far easier, though, if they’d survived the Senate.
All that the Senate can crow about is a fairly mild increase in auto efficiency standards-going from an average 25 miles a gallon to 35, over 13 years. So far the House has resisted this, because of the power of Michigan’s Rep. John Conyers and his auto-state allies. At the least, they’ll be demanding that light trucks, including SUVs, be excluded from the new standards. The fiction that supports this current exception is that SUVs are "work vehicles," not suburban shopping vehicles. Bleeah.