While motorists continue to complain over high gasoline prices, the Democrats and Republicans are engaged in a bitter fight as to what course of action to take.
A bill that would have accelerated and expanded offshore oil drilling was defeated in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday. The Republican-sponsored measure to speed up decision making on drilling permits and force the government to conduct canceled lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico fell short of the 60-vote threshold after Democratic opposition.
In the 42-to-57 verdict – 18 shy of the number required for bringing the measure up for debate – 5 Republicans broke party ranks to join 52 Democrats or independents to vote against the bill.
Amid public outcry over high gasoline prices, Republicans have been advocating the opening up of more U.S. offshore drilling areas to deal with the problem. Pointing out that regulations imposed by the Obama administration in the aftermath of last year’s oil spill accident in the Gulf of Mexico have locked up offshore oil drilling, the lawmakers propose to increase domestic supply through new exploration/drilling by expediting government permits.
They insist this would lead to higher domestic energy production that would lessen dependence on foreign oil, put more Americans back to work and most importantly, help stabilize prices over time.
However, the Democrats and opponents of the bill say that it would not be able to lower gasoline prices and that it undermines the safety and regulatory lessons learnt from last year’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The incident killed 11 workers and spewed more than 200 million gallons of crude in what is touted as the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
For their part, the Democrats seek to strip the five largest private oil companies in the U.S. – ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM), Chevron Corp. (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP), BP plc (BP) and Royal Dutch Shell plc (RDS.A) – of about $21 billion in tax subsidies over the next 10 years and steer the savings to reduce the federal budget deficit. According to them, in the face of $4-a-gallon gasoline price and soaring industry profits, there is no justification for the billions of dollars in special tax breaks provided to these firms by the government.
However, the Democrats’ efforts to push a bill in this regard was defeated in the Senate yesterday amid Republican opposition.
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