Energy cloture vote fails
By Jim Snyder
With the help of six Republicans, Democrats this morning turned back the first floor test on comprehensive energy legislation, one of the administration’s two highest remaining priorities for the year.
Bill supporters fell two votes shy of the 60 needed to end debate on the measure, raising doubts about its future with only days remaining in the session.
Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe (Maine), Susan Collins (Maine), John Sununu (N.H.), Judd Gregg (N.H.), Lincoln Chafee (R.I.), and John McCain (Ariz.) joined James Jeffords (I-Vt.) and 33 Democrats to block cloture.
Prior to the vote, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), the main Senate author, defended the bill as a boon to farmers because it doubles corn-based ethanol production, and a “remedy” against future blackouts like the one the crippled the Northeast on Aug. 14.
The measure would provide $25 billion in tax breaks, most of which is directed to the nuclear, coal, oil and gas and renewable energy industries. It would authorize nearly $60 billion in direct spending.
Questions about the bill’s cost — it would provide $25 billion in tax breaks — and a controversial liability protection for producers of MTBE, a gasoline additive, convinced enough senators to block the cloture vote, overcoming the departure of several high-profile Midwestern Democrats who voted with the GOP.
Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said the Senate would vote on the energy bill again before adjourning for the Thanksgiving break and possibly for the year. Frist initially voted for cloture and then against it because Senate rules require him to vote on the winning side, making the final tally 57-40.
One option available to bill supporters is to reach an informal agreement with the House that, for example, alters the MTBE provision, and then attach that language to the omnibus appropriations bill in both houses.
The measure cannot be returned to the conference committee that wrote the bill, because the House has already approved it.
Environmentalists and government spending watchdog groups, the chief critics of the measure, welcomed its defeat Friday, but worried that supporters would eventually win the day.
"The question now is whether handing out another round of pork in appropriations bills will sway enough votes in the next couple of days to patch the hole in the bottom of the President's energy boat,” said Philip Clapp of the National Environmental Trust.
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the Democrats who voted for cloture, said she was confident a compromise on MTBE could be worked out, and the bill passed by both bodies.
But during conference, House Republicans from Gulf Coast states where MTBE is produced, such as House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), insisted the liability provision be included in the bill.
The provision prevents lawsuits against MTBE producers simply for making the product, which has been found to contaminate groundwater. It likely would block a recently filed lawsuit in New Hampshire against several MTBE producers.
Estimates of the total clean-up costs for MTBE vary widely, from several hundred million dollars to $29 billion.
In the days leading up to this morning’s vote, each side lobbied hard to win the support of the few undecided senators.
Domenici pressed Midwesterners especially hard, stressing not only the ethanol provision, but also the extension of a tax credit for the production of wind energy, another popular program in farm states, provided under the bill.
That pattern continued just prior to the cloture vote. Domenici warned farm-state senators that the energy bill would be the last chance to bring home the bill’s generous provisions, an apparent reference to contentions made by Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) that the ethanol measure could pass on its own.
“Democrats are leading a parade to kill the most important program ever drawn up for farmers,” Domenici said of the ethanol mandate.
In the end, several Midwestern Democrats, who complained about other provisions in the measure, ended up supporting the cloture vote, including Daschle, and Sens. Tom Harkin (Iowa), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), and Mark Dayton (D-Minn.). In total, 13 Democrats voted to end debate.
Sens. John Kerry (Mass.) and John Edwards (N.C.), both presidential candidates, did not vote.
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