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Members of Congress pursue different partisan paths on energy

In Washington, facing political fallout from high gas prices, Senate Democrats moved Tuesday to raise taxes on big oil companies while the Republican-led House debated a bill to speed up permits for offshore drilling.

BY CHRIS CASTEEL

May 11, 2011

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Link to Inhofe Floor Speech: Best Solution to High Gas Prices is Developing and Producing More American Energy

WASHINGTON - Facing political fallout from high gas prices, Senate Democrats moved Tuesday to raise taxes on big oil companies, while the Republican-led House debated a bill to speed up permits for offshore drilling.

The competing approaches framed the political debate in Washington, though neither bill has much chance of becoming law.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate will spend the next few days on legislation that would eliminate some tax deductions for the five largest oil companies, to raise $21 billion over 10 years for deficit reduction.

Reid, D-Nev., said Chevron, Shell, Exxon Mobil, BP and ConocoPhillips posted a combined $36 billion in profits in the first quarter of this year and don't need special tax breaks as incentives to produce oil and gas.

The House last week rejected an attempt to consider tax hikes for the biggest energy companies. And the Senate has voted twice in the past year against proposals to eliminate a broad range of oil and gas industry deductions.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who introduced the bill to eliminate the tax breaks, said, "No one is claiming the bill is about lowering gas prices."

But, Menendez said, eliminating the deductions also wouldn't lead to higher gas prices.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said lawmakers serious about deficit reduction shouldn't hesitate to vote for the bill, which would "loosen the grip of the Big Oil lobby that has dominated the halls of Congress for way too long."

Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the lobby group for the oil and gas industry, called the legislation "a vindictive money grab."

"We should be putting more people to work producing more of the oil and natural gas we use," he said. "That would increase revenue, grow our economy and strengthen our energy security."

Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, made similar points in a speech on the Senate floor, saying President Barack Obama and other Democrats repeatedly understate the amount of oil and gas that could be produced domestically.

"We have the supply in the United States of America," Inhofe said. "We've got to open up that supply so we can use it, and obviously that would lower the price of gas at the pumps."

The House on Tuesday worked on legislation that would require the Department of the Interior to respond within 60 days to an application for a permit to drill in the outer continental shelf. Republicans have claimed the administration has imposed a de facto moratorium on offshore drilling by delaying permits.

But Democrats say the bill - which also includes limits on lawsuits to delay drilling in the Gulf of Mexico - would jeopardize the environment and the safety of workers on offshore rigs.

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