Right now a massive $70 billion tax-cut bill is working its way through the Senate.
(You will recall that Congressional Republicans split the budget bill in two, so the first bill would be pure spending cuts -- thus getting them coverage in the press for "courageously" cutting spending to rein in the deficit -- and the second pure tax cuts, to please all their normal constituencies. The latter being much larger than the former, the net result is a massive expansion of the deficit.)
Energy prices being what they are, Congresscritters feel pressured to Do Something. Rather than any substantive changes in energy policy -- kind of blew that chance with the grotesque energy bill -- they're settling for symbolic smacks to the wrist of Big Oil.
I won't get too far into the weeds of various proposals, since none of them will survive House-Senate conference committee and none would make a very big difference if it did. I'll just do the bloggy thing and extract a few absurdities from the press coverage.
Here's one from The Wall Street Journal:
