08-21-07 by dugan
The datahounds at the Center for American Progress are issuing a good report on the Clean Energy Incentives portion of the big House Energy bill, linking yes and no votes to oil company contributions. Here’s a sneak peek. (It’s being released tomorrow).
It’s no big shock that the "no" voters on the clean energy measure, which would be funded by closing $16 billion in oil tax loopholes, got much higher industry contributions than the "yes" voters. But analysis of the close House vote tells us how hard it will be to keep this measure in the final energy bill.
The Senate, under oil industry pressure, deleted a similar clean energy section from its version of the bill. Given the Senate opposition, the closeness of the House version, and the continued intense lobbying of the oil industry to keep that $16 billion, we wouldn’t be taking bets. From Big Oil’s viewpoint, spending $30 million on Congress is a bargain if it retains even a piece of the loopholes.