Posted on 01/18/2007 4:05:56 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The House wrapped up the Democrats' "100 Hours" legislative sprint Thursday with time to spare, voting to recoup billions of dollars in lost royalties from oil and gas companies and roll back industry tax breaks.
The energy bill capped a two-week drumbeat of votes on legislation that, while popular with voters last fall, awaits a sketchy fate in the Senate.
The House bill, approved 264-123, sets a conservation fee on oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico, attempts to recoup royalties lost because of a government error in drilling leases in the late 1990s, and rolls back several oil industry tax breaks.
"In the November election, the American people signaled their wish for change — a wish for our country to go in a new direction," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. "Democrats promised that we would, and these past two weeks, we have delivered on our promise."
Democrats accomplished their early legislative goals in 87 hours, adopting new ethics rules and passing bills raising the minimum wage, expanding taxpayer financed research into embryonic stem cells, forcing more homeland security measures, directing the federal government to negotiate for cheaper Medicare prescription drugs and lowering interest rates on subsidized student loans.
Democrats pushed the legislation through swiftly, denying Republicans any opportunity to amend bills, and established themselves as the vanguard for the Democratic agenda. But internal friction within both parties, the potential for partisan gridlock in the Senate and confrontation with the White House over the war in Iraq signal less, not more, legislative production in the weeks ahead.
In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans on Thursday struggled to untangle a partisan knot that threatened to sink ethics legislation. The episode illustrated how hampered Senate Democrats are to impose their will with their razor-thin majority.
The past two weeks also took the glow off the cooperative tone both parties set in the opening day of the new Congress. House Republicans complained bitterly about being denied amendments on the legislation, an echo of Democratic complaints during the 12 years of Republican dominance.
"We are short-circuiting democracy here, and I think my colleagues on both sides of the aisle understand it," said House Republican leader John Boehner (news, bio, voting record), R-Ohio. "I'm here today to ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to live up to the promises that were made, to live up to the desire to be treated fairly."
Democrats were not sympathetic.
"We are working on an agenda that the minority would not or could not do, and we're fulfilling our promise to the American people," said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Rules Committee. "And all the whining you can do, all of it you can produce will not deter us from it."
Still some Democrats were eager to move on to a more deliberative pace.
"One of the things that we were savagely critical of is the fact that the Republicans did not follow the regular order," said Rep. John Dingell (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich. "Now it is time for us to get back and take ourselves seriously and proceed under the regular order."
For all its speed, the House legislation now enters the quicksands of the Senate, where Republicans already are displaying their ability to alter or slow down the Democratic agenda.
Senate Republicans, for instance, were trying to use the ethics legislation to extract a promise from Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) of Nevada that the Senate would get a vote on legislation to give the president authority to challenge individual spending items for elimination.
Republicans also insisted on attaching $8.3 billion in small business tax breaks to a Senate version of minimum wage legislation. The legislation was written jointly by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (news, bio, voting record), D-Mont., and the committee's ranking Republican, Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record). Reid has said he would support the tax breaks to pass the new wage floor. But House Democrats have objected, noting that tax legislation must originate in the House, with the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said Senate Democrats were essentially telling the House that Congress would not raise the minimum wage if it did not contain tax breaks.
"How are you going to explain that?" he asked. "I don't know what Baucus and Reid are talking about."
Senate Republicans also planned to press for different legislation dealing with college tuition. The House bill would cut in half the interest rates paid by college graduates for their need-based, federally subsidized loans. Republicans have argued that students would be better helped by expanding federal tuition grants.
If passed by the Senate, the prescription drug bill and the stem cell research bills also face presidential vetoes. The House vote margins were not sufficient to override a veto.
But the prescription drug bill may not even reach the president in its current form. Baucus and other senators want to scale back the scope of the House bill, by targeting the drugs that the government would be permitted to bargain for prices.
If the partisan friction were not enough, both parties face internal conflicts as well.
Several House and Senate Republicans have objected to President Bush's troop boosting plan for Iraq. Two Republican senators — Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record) of Nebraska and Olympia Snowe (news, bio, voting record) of Maine — have singed on to a nonbinding resolution opposing the insertion of 21,500 new troops into the war.
Democrats are divided themselves, unable to agree on how to express their opposition to Bush. Some prefer a nonbonding resolution, while others in the House and Senate want more muscular legislation specifically limiting Bush's ability to act on his strategy.
In the House, Pelosi and some of her key committee chairmen were on a collision course over how to address global warming legislation. Pelosi wants to create a special committee to recommend legislation, at least duplicating work by committees that have jurisdiction on climate change issues.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., center, accompanied by fellow Democratic House members, applaud during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007 to discuss the work of the 110th Congress during their first 100 hours. From left are, Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, D-N.H., Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Pa., Pelosi, Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-Ohio and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Good job! Now take the next two years off.
By my count, it's been over 2 weeks, not 100 hours. But we wouldn't want the media to aim a critical eye at the Dems. and their nonsense claims anyway.
"100 hours" of how to damage the nation. How proud they must be.
I like the way AP tows the line on the dimocRATs loop-hole riddled first '100 hours'.
Wow! That's a triple smirk photo!
I also wish Pelosi would get her eye sockets inflated. She looks very weird.
Bend Over Consumers and Taxpayers,and stand by for the RAM.
Now the media push for Harry Reid to end the filibuster in the Senate will really start.
We are just SO smart and the people LOVE us!
Can I get a smirk comrades?
Hundred Hours of Horsecrap
Sounds like there was some complicity goin' on there.
No liberal bias here. None at all.
Hundred hours? By my count its been about 300 hours.
AP should let us know whose clock they are watching. According to Pelosi and the Dems, the first 100 hours still have a few weeks to go - they only admit to a little more than 38 hours of the first 100.
By the bye, the celebratory mood at the AP needs to be tempered with a reality check - all the Dems want to do is raise the price of gas on the consumer and punish America for being a wealthy nation. With gas prices plummeting at the pump, consumers are just too happy. The Dems want the price back in the $2.50 - $3.00/gallon range. It will be interesting to see how they try to spin this into "Bush's fault". American voters are gullible - they just aren't THAT gullible!!
And they accomplished what exactly?! Feel good 'news'. Big whoop.
Ap has also hung the folowing title on the article
House Democrats beat 100-hour clock
beat?
I'm beat just trying to endure the MSM's love fest with the smarmy SOBs
Her face lift is falling or they didn't airbrush her enough.
S T R E T C H...
oops, my mistake, that was a new different title for an ap article, since updated, that I posted earlier today.
1 bill left on Dems' 100-hour agenda
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