Congress postpones vote on Gulf drilling

Congress postpones vote on Gulf drilling
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – As one of its last acts, the Republican-led Congress postponed a showdown vote on opening 8 million more acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling. Supporters were worried about achieving the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure under rules allowing little debate. They said they might make another attempt before week’s end using different rules that allow broader debate but require only a simple majority.
Lawmakers returned Tuesday for only four days of work before Republicans call it quits after running Congress for 12 years. Democrats will control both houses for the first time since 1994 when a new Congress reflecting last month’s election starts up in January.
Republicans already have left the biggest unfinished tasks of 2006 – approving budgets for most federal agencies – to their successors.
Leaders in both parties, however, still have hopes of renewing three popular tax breaks before leaving town. They include $4,000 deductions for college students, a sales tax credit in states without their own income taxes and business research and development credits. All expired last December.
Late Tuesday, House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee negotiators were still working out final details of the tax bill.
But the Ways and Means panel did complete for floor action a comprehensive trade bill that grants permanent trade relations with Vietnam. The House rejected the Vietnam bill last month under a procedure requiring a two-thirds majority, but it is strongly backed by the White House.
The trade package also extends programs offering lower duties for Andean nations and promotes apparel industries in Haiti and sub-Saharan Africa. Lawmakers from textile states have voiced concerns that the bills, which allow some transshipments from China and other Third World countries, will result in further losses to American producers.
In other action as Congress moved toward adjourning for the year by week’s end:
•Senate Democrats from urban states ended a monthslong fight stalling passage of a $2.1 billion AIDS funding bill that shifts money to rural states, where the disease is spreading fastest now.
•The Senate passed a bill to create a new agency within the Health and Human Services Department to oversee the development of medicine and equipment to respond to a bird flu pandemic or a bioterrorism attack.
•The Senate scrapped a measure to provide $4.8 billion in disaster aid to drought-stricken farmers after Bush threatened to veto it. Conservative Republicans argued that it was to expensive.
•House and Senate negotiators worked on a final bill to allow shipments of U.S. civilian nuclear reactor fuel to India despite its development of nuclear weapons outside an international non-proliferation regime.
Regarding the oil drilling matter, House leaders gave no reason for canceling a scheduled vote on the bill that had passed the Senate earlier this year. But one congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because another attempt may be made, said some Republicans withdrew their support at the last minute, and sponsors didn’t want to risk losing the vote.
The drilling bill covers an area 125 miles south of the Florida Panhandle and is up to 300 miles from Florida’s Gulf Coast. The area is believed to contain 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough gas to heat 6 million homes for 15 years. The country uses about 21 million barrels of oil a day.