The Senate held a cloture vote this morning to overcome a threatened filibuster from Senate Republicans. It failed 59-40 — one vote short of the 60 votes needed. Reid now says he’ll introduce the bill again later today without the clean-energy tax provisions.
More later. Right now I’m so disgusted and pissed off I don’t know what to say.
UPDATE: Well, here’s one thing to say, to the Associated Press: the first line of your article says that Republicans blocked the bill because of “new taxes” on oil companies. That is straightforwardly false, and deserves a correction. Nobody proposed any new taxes. The proposal was to rescind the sweetheart tax breaks the oil and gas industry got in the 2005 Energy Act. Removing a tax break is not raising taxes, as you acknowledge later in the piece:
The oil companies had pressed lawmakers to oppose repeal of the $13.5 billion in tax breaks provided them by Congress in 2004 and 2005. They argued the tax relief was essential as an incentive for domestic oil and gas production and refinery expansion and that rolling back the tax breaks would lead to higher energy prices. [my emphasis]
Please do the world a favor and don’t parrot Republican talking points in the first sentence of your $%#! piece.
Also, you note that a report from the Joint Economic Committee refutes the oil company contention that removing tax breaks will raise energy prices for consumers. You might have cited other studies. Or you might — stop me if this sounds too crazy — have said the following: “The contention by oil companies that repealing tax breaks will raise consumer energy prices is false.” That’s called giving readers the information they need to assess current events, as opposed to dutifully transcribing both sides’ talking points.
