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| December 13th, 2007 |
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Media Contact(s): Jared Whitley (202) 224-5251 |
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Printable Version |
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FLOOR SPEECH: ON THE CLOTURE VOTE FOR THE ENERGY BILL
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Washington - Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) today gave the following statement before the United States Senate on the Energy Bill.
Mr. President, I would like to take just a moment to talk about the cloture vote on the energy bill today. I have worked very closely with my good friend, Senator Baucus, the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, to restructure the energy tax provisions in a way that reflects a more balanced energy policy. I have consistently opposed the energy tax package up to this point. I voted against the proposal in the Senate Finance Committee, because I believed it did not reflect a balanced energy policy. Rather, it imposed new taxes on our nation’s oil companies, while doing too little to address one of our nation’s most pressing energy needs: our lack of domestic refining capacity.
I also voted against cloture on the energy proposal on the Senate Floor in June before it was sent to conference, or what should have been a conference on the proposal. So many of us were not even afforded the courtesy of basic Senate procedure and that was appalling. Thus, when the bill came back from the House with a House amendment earlier this month, I voted against cloture once again. It was my understanding that when cloture failed, solid commitments had been made to ensure the minority would be included in the formulation of a bill that would really address some of the very real energy problems we have in this country.
Based on this understanding and as a senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, I worked with my colleagues on the Finance Committee to improve the tax package. To the credit of Chairman Baucus and several members on both sides of the aisle, significant and important modifications were made to the tax portion of the energy bill.
The new tax provisions included in this bill take some important steps toward balancing this bill in a way that will benefit US consumers. The new severance tax on offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico had been dropped from the revised bill. This move alone restored more than $10 billion toward the effort to increase our domestic production of oil. A provision to extend for three years a tax incentive that I had originally sponsored to increase refining capacity. Senator Baucus also dropped a tax increase on natural gas lines, which restored over $500 million to our natural gas infrastructure. Finally Mr. President, a provision that would provide incentives for the conversion of hybrid electric vehicles to plug-in hybrid vehicles was included. This restored an important aspect of my legislation known as the FREEDOM Act, or S. 1617.
To say this bill is perfect would be an enormous stretch. I believe the tax package was improved, but it could still be a whole lot better. However, given the realities of Congress, I believed the more balanced tax bill was worthy of my support.
Also of great concern, this bill would apply new Davis Bacon requirements to energy production activities. Expansion of Davis Bacon is poor public policy and absolutely terrible energy policy. Now that cloture has failed and it is apparent the energy bill cannot proceed I encourage my colleagues to remove these provisions prior any additional votes on an energy bill. I believe these provisions are one of the main reasons this bill is unable to secure enough support to proceed.
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