Senate rejects GOP environment, energy proposals

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio talks to reporters about jobs, the high­way bill, and pol­i­tics, dur­ing a new con­fer­ence Thurs­day on Capi­tol Hill in Wash­ing­ton. (Asso­ci­ated Press | J. Scott Applewhite)

JOAN LOWY

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — The Sen­ate killed Republican-backed attempts to over­turn sev­eral of Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s envi­ron­men­tal and energy poli­cies Thurs­day as law­mak­ers worked against a March 31 dead­line to keep aid flow­ing to more than 100,000 trans­porta­tion con­struc­tion projects around the country.

The two-year, $109 bil­lion trans­porta­tion bill before the Sen­ate has wide, bipar­ti­san sup­port, but has become a mag­net for law­mak­ers’ favorite causes and par­ti­san games­man­ship. Among the amend­ments bat­ted aside were GOP pro­pos­als to bypass Obama’s con­cerns about the Key­stone XL oil pipeline, to delay tougher air pol­lu­tion stan­dards for indus­trial boil­ers and to expand off­shore oil drilling.

Action on those and other amend­ments came under an agree­ment between Sen­ate Major­ity Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minor­ity Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., aimed at clear­ing the way for pas­sage of the trans­porta­tion bill next week.

Obama lob­bied some Sen­ate Democ­rats by tele­phone ahead of the Key­stone vote, urg­ing them to oppose an amend­ment by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., that would have pre­vented the pres­i­dent from inter­ven­ing in deci­sions related to con­struc­tion of the pipeline and would have speeded its approval. Point­ing to the administration’s envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns about the project, which would carry tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast, Repub­li­cans accused Obama of stand­ing in the way greater oil sup­plies at a time when Amer­i­cans are cop­ing with ris­ing gaso­line prices.

But some Democ­rats, espe­cially those from oil pro­duc­ing states, were torn between sup­port for the pipeline and their sup­port for the pres­i­dent. The amend­ment was defeated 56–42, even though 11 Democ­rats broke ranks to sup­port it. Sixty votes were needed for passage.

Repub­li­can lead­ers jumped on the White House lobbying.

“Most Amer­i­cans strongly sup­port build­ing this pipeline and the jobs that would come with it,” McConnell said in a statement.

The president’s lob­by­ing against the Key­stone pro­vi­sion came “a week after the pres­i­dent sig­naled to me and to Sen. McConnell that he might be will­ing to work with us on some bipar­ti­san steps for­ward on energy leg­is­la­tion that the Amer­i­can peo­ple sup­port,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters. “If we’re going to have bipar­ti­san action on energy, the Key­stone pipeline is an obvi­ous place to start.”

White House spokesman Jay Car­ney said Obama felt it was “wrong to play pol­i­tics” with the pipeline, espe­cially since the com­pany behind the project has said it still was work­ing on a final route that might sat­isfy envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns. He also said it was “false adver­tis­ing” to sug­gest the amend­ment would have any impact on gaso­line prices.

Also defeated was an amend­ment by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, which would have forced the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency to rewrite a rule requir­ing boiler oper­a­tors to install mod­ern emis­sions con­trols. Boil­ers are the second-largest source of toxic mer­cury emis­sions after coal-fired power plants. Collins said the EPA’s rule would drive some man­u­fac­tur­ers out of business.

And the Sen­ate turned down an amend­ment to expand off­shore oil drilling even though its spon­sor, Sen. David Vit­ter, D-La., con­tended it would increase domes­tic energy sup­plies and reduce gas prices.

The trans­porta­tion bill itself would over­haul fed­eral trans­porta­tion pro­grams, includ­ing boost­ing aid to high­way and tran­sit pro­grams, stream­line some envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions in order to speed up approval of projects and con­sol­i­date dozens of programs.

Law­mak­ers are under pres­sure to act quickly because the government’s author­ity to col­lect about $110 mil­lion a day in fed­eral gaso­line and diesel taxes and to spend money out of the trust fund that pays for high­way and tran­sit pro­grams expires at the end of the month. Chris Bertram, a Trans­porta­tion Depart­ment offi­cial, said that if Con­gress doesn’t meet the dead­line, aid to about 130,000 trans­porta­tion projects around the coun­try will be dis­rupted and fed­eral work­ers who send that money to states will be furloughed.

The con­struc­tion indus­try, already suf­fer­ing 17.7 per­cent unem­ploy­ment at the end of Jan­u­ary, would be espe­cially hurt.

House Repub­li­cans crafted their own five-year, $260 bil­lion bill, but they’ve been unable to mar­shal the sup­port of rank-and-file law­mak­ers behind it. Con­ser­v­a­tives say it spends too much money, while mod­er­ates say it would penal­ize union work­ers and under­mine envi­ron­men­tal provisions.

Boehner con­ceded Thurs­day that for the moment the House’s best option is to take up the Sen­ate bill after it passes — “or some­thing like it” — although GOP lead­ers were still talk­ing to their mem­bers in the hope of res­ur­rect­ing their bill.

The inabil­ity of House Repub­li­cans to pass a high­way bill of their own is an exam­ple of a paral­y­sis that has struck sev­eral times in the past year. Last sum­mer, an impasse over labor issues and sub­si­dies for rural air­ports led to a two-week shut­down of non-essential Fed­eral Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion operations.

In Decem­ber, Boehner over­rode his own rank-and-file when he agreed to a deal to extend the Social Secu­rity pay­roll tax cut after most law­mak­ers had gone home.

Posted by AP News on Mar 8 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.