Provider: Reuters
WASHINGTON Senate Republicans plan a new push this week to pass a stalled energy bill through Congress by hitching a ride on legislation on highway spending moving toward approval, a Republican aide said on Monday.
Republican Sen. Pete Domenici, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy Committee, will likely try to tack a pared-down energy bill onto a $318 billion package to pay for highway projects that could face a Senate vote this week, the lawmaker's aide said on Monday.
"Senator Domenici is looking to move the energy package as part of the highway bill," spokeswoman Marnie Funk said.
The cost of the energy legislation has been nearly cut in half from its original price tag of $31 billion to appease some budget hawks who are worried about the federal budget deficit.
Domenici has not yet revealed which energy bill subsidies and incentives are likely to be attached to the highway bill. The original energy bill aimed to double the production of corn-distilled ethanol to be used as a gasoline additive, impose nationwide electric reliability standards, and spend $3 billion on new ways to generate electricity from coal.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona criticized a move to fold energy measures into the highway spending bill.
"This is a remarkable exercise," said McCain, who estimated the energy bill's new pricetag in the range of $13 billion to $18 billion. "What does the energy bill have to do with the highway bill? Nothing," McCain said. "Do we have no shame?"
Some Democrats also oppose the idea. "We think the highway bill ought to be a highway bill," said a spokesman for Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee.
It remains unclear if a highway bill broadened to include energy items can win enough support for Senate passage. Senate Republican leaders also face an uphill battle to get the House of Representatives to approve any rejiggered energy package the Senate might approve.
There is fundamental disagreement over whether to drop legal liability protection for makers of a controversial fuel additive. The current comprehensive energy bill, stalled in the Senate, would shelter makers of the fuel additive MTBE, methyl tertiary butyl ether, from product defect lawsuits for water pollution.
A coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans blocked a final vote on the energy bill late last year because of opposition to waiver for MTBE.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has held to his strong opposition to removing the MTBE liability shield and has pledged to reinsert the measure if the energy package comes before the chamber again. DeLay is from Texas, where many petrochemical and oil companies would benefit from the protection from MTBE lawsuits.
According to Congressional sources, other senators are also mulling whether to attach to the highway bill the ethanol portion of the energy bill that would double the use of renewable fuels like ethanol by 2012.
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