Bid to Revive Energy Legislation Via Unrelated Bill Fails in Senate

The Senate yesterday derailed efforts to revive long-stalled energy legislation, further dimming the prospects for approval this year of a broad initiative to expand energy production, encourage conservation and streamline the nation's overburdened electricity grid. In back-to-back votes, the Senate fell short of the 60 votes needed to pass either ethanol-production incentives or a much broader, 900-page package of energy proposals as part of an unrelated bill to extend an expired ban on Internet access taxes. It also voted to impose limits on other amendments to the Internet tax bill, effectively blocking Democrats, led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), from trying to add a proposal to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7 an hour over the next two years. Kennedy staffers said the senator is likely to try to attach the minimum-wage proposal to a bill aimed at curbing class-action lawsuits, which Republican leadership aides said will probably come up in early June. GOP senators plan to offer an alternative with a smaller wage increase and with tax breaks to help small businesses pay the higher wages. The energy legislation, including a slimmed-down version of a proposed House-Senate compromise, has been bogged down in the Senate for […]

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