House Dems plan new energy push
With gasoline prices hovering over $4 a gallon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants to make another energy push before Americans load their cars back up for the Independence Day holiday.
Pelosi met with several committee chairs and members of the House Democratic leadership Thursday to begin work on a package of energy proposals. She asked the committee chairs to recommend proposals that have already passed committee with bipartisan support, or measures that were left out of last year’s energy bill but are ripe for reconsideration.
…”I certainly hope this means that the Speaker has realized that the policies that have been pursued thus far by the Democratic leadership would be either ineffectual or actively counterproductive,” said Michael Steel, spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “Raising taxes on the American energy industry, for example, would cost American jobs and make us more dependent on foreign energy.”
Republicans have announced plans to use procedural measures to force Democrats to vote on increasing oil production in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Outer Continental Shelf.