Senate GOP Votes Down Bill To End Big Oil Subsidies

Source: huffingtonpost.com

WASHINGTON -- A ceremonial vote over whether to end subsidies to major oil companies failed on Tuesday, with 45 Republicans and three Democrats voting to continue the tax incentives to the five largest oil companies.

Atlhough the 52-48 vote broke down mostly along party lines, Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine split with the rest of the GOP to support the effort to repeal oil subsidies. Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Mark Begich (D-Alaska), voted against the bill.

Still, the debate over whether to end the subsidies is unlikely to die with Tuesday's vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowed to continue pushing for the government to end the series of tax credits to five oil companies, which Democrats say could produce $21 billion over the next decade.

"I am confident that before we finish our budget negotiations here, and in anticipation of raising the debt ceiling, that that will be part of it," Reid said at a midday press conference.

The bill would have cut $12 billion in subsidies for producing oil within the United States for Chevron, Shell Oil, BP America, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobile. Another $6 billion would come from eliminating credits for taxes that the oil companies pay to foreign governments, with the final $2 billion from blocking them from writing off certain drilling and development costs.

snip

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/17/oil-subsidies-senate-gop_n_863308.html

Do they need two-thirds for this?

"convince" them to vote the correct way. Its time to stop play mister nice guy and star playing hardball.

Republicans win both Houses of Congress and the Presidency fairly, they should be able to have their way--and so should we, if we win all three fairly.

I'd rather see Republicans get their way than endure the perennial paralysis with which super majority rules have "blessed" this country.

Yes, the rules are old, but they were never designed to break down every issue along Party lines.

Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu just join the GOP. Disgraceful. They should be voted out of office next election.

Nelson often votes against the Dem's, but that's how he holds on to his seat in a red, red, red state. We're damned with him and damned without him. :shrug:

the oil catastrophe and the citizens are getting jilted.

She may end up regretting her vote.

super rich" club.

if he breaks with the caucus on the substantive vote. If he is not even voting with his caucus on procedural votes, like cloture, we're far more damned with him than we would be without him.

Democrats--not Nelson, and not the cloture vote requirements and certainly not Republicans--will get blamed for whatever Congress did--or failed to do--while Democrats nominally controlled both houses and the Oval Office.

and 48 (a minority) in favor of maintaining the Big Oil Subsidies.

Why do we still have these subsidies?

you often need 60 votes to get anything passed in Senate.

"But the Democrats have a majority, why don't they pass things?"

(they never let the fact that damn near every piece of legislation with a D author is subject to a filibuster ...)

that Democrats had a majority, there were 60 votes in the caucus until Brown's election, whereupon there were 59.

So, for a time, the Democratic caucus did have enough votes to invoke cloture. If Democrats couldn't control their own caucus--didn't even seem to try--whose fault was that?


Now, however, it's just as fair to blame Republicans for failure to pass things as it is to blame Democrats. Truth is, though, both Parties want things exactly as they are, namely, gridlock, or they would change the Senate rules.

Or was this the vote to end the filibuster??

a cloture vote, nothing more and nothing less.

The purpose of a cloture vote is to see if the Senate can end a filibusteR--or so it used to be. Then, the Senate decided a real filibuster was too much work to do simply to achieve gridlock, so actual filibusters are no longer required.


Calling a vote that fails to end a bon-existent filibuster a "filibuster" only obfuscates the reality that the Senate of the United States keeps making paralyzing the country and defeating the will of a majority of voters easier and easier.

The change was made to prevent a real filibuster from bringing the Senate to a standstill on everything. I think they should have reformed the filibuster this Congress, but they did very little.

You had posted "....failing a cloture vote is filibustering.” If your response was intended to imply that one or more Senate rules say "....failing a cloture vote is filibustering,” kindly refer me to the specific rule or rules.

My reply began, "Only if you've gone through the looking glass (a reference to Lewis Carroll's less famous work)." I stand by that entire reply.


"The change was made to prevent a real filibuster from bringing the Senate to a standstill on everything."

That may be your version of one of the reasons the Senate may have stated as a justification for eliminating the need to actually “talk” a filibuster for hours. However, in reality, as my prior post said, the change made it easier to bring the entire nation to a standstill on every meaningful issue. And which politicians, as a general matter, prefer the status quo to votes that would, if taken, change and/or reform the status quo? Conservatives.

I don’t believe that Democratic Senators are dumb or oblivious to the consequences of the rule changes for which they vote. Therefore, the reason why Democratic Senators joined Republican Senators in voting to change the Senate Rules in a way that, in general, gridlocks the nation, is a question that interests me. Another interesting question is why the Democratic majority leader so often foregos his option to require an actual filibuster, especially on something like subsidies for the oil industry.

Anyone's blah blah carefully worded press release for public consumption about the stated reasons for a Senate rule change is decidedly less interesting to me. I am no conspiracy theorist. However, if I were to accept blindly everything anyone in government says at face value, I would not be doing my duty as an American citizen.

3/5ths to invoke Cloture
2/3rds to ratify a treaty, pass a Constitutional amendment, or to continue a declaration of Presidential disability beyond 3 weeks

Thats IT!

We don't even have to try to invoke cloture anymore, because we never force a filibuster. How can you invoke cloture when no one is filibustering? LET THE WINDBAGS FILIBUSTER UNTIL THEY BREAK, OR TILL THE OTHER SENATORS GET TIRED OR TILL THE VOTERS GET FED UP. My god! This point has been made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and 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made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made and made.

Why does it require being said again? Why do we take this SHIT?

Democrats had the chance to make changes vin the Senate rules ia a "mere" majority at the start of the session, but they failed so to do.

BW, changing the Senate rules also requires a super majority, except at the start of a new session, and that, too, is not a Constitutional requirement.

Go hang an R next to your name! Once again, the BOZOS are able to demonstrate solidarity, while the donkey party plays Hee-Haw. :grr:

Two of them voted against their party as well.

I swear to god I can't take this SHIT anymore, I'm having a fucking breakdown over this.

We dig into government pensions so we can give SUBSIDIES to OIL COMPANIES? There's no money for Medicare, but we can still give SUBSIDIES to OIL COMPANIES? We're dismantling our safety net, so we can give SUBSIDIES to OIL COMPANIES?

Companies that count their profits in the billions and their taxes in an empty fist?

WAKE UP AMERICA!

We are being FUCKED and asked to say "thank you!"

THANK YOU EXXON! THAT FEEELS GOOD! Can I get raped again, PLEASE?

If our Dems can't get this done, they either aren't worth a shit and CAN'T, or they aren't worth a shit and WON'T. Either way they have to GO, the easy way or the hard way...

I wish I had a fire pit. I need to burn something. My eyes hurt.

They aren't worth a shit.

And no-one in the corridors of power cares.

Landrieu and Begich are from states who want to cater to the oil companies - BUT THIS IS WRONG ALSO.
We, the majority of people in this country, who are not wealthy and who are not in favor of giving more and more money to the corporations, need to get together and stop this insanity.

This is insanity - proof? - there is no way so many truly stupid people could get elected without big money behind them - and these Republicans in office now will do or say anything to get their paychecks from the people with the big bucks. They were able to con enough stupid people with the money from the corporations to get elected.

There has to be a way to get around this scam.

I am of the opinion that we are being played by both the dems and republicans, in fact it wouldnt surprise me to learn that there was some backdoor wheeling and dealing going on to decide who would be the ones who voted to support doing away with the subsidies and who would vote to support the subsidies.

> we are being played by both the dems and republicans, in fact it wouldn't
> surprise me to learn that there was some backdoor wheeling and dealing
> going on to decide who would be the ones who voted to support doing away
> with the subsidies and who would vote to support the subsidies.

"Vote for Change! (You'll never get it but if it keeps you quiet ...)"

The People haven't had representation since Clinton, his "Third Way," and his move to shove the Democrats WAAAYYYY to the right. All for money. Nader is right -- there is very little difference between the two major political parties anymore. I'm not sure why we all pretend there is.

I believe the civil rights reforms--beginning with the change in ICC regulations during the Kennedy Administration, then the Voting Rights Acts and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gradually cost the Democratic Party the "Solid South." Of course, the South had originally become the solidly Democratic South after Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected. (Guess why.)

Before California went blue, winning the electoral vote without the South would have been nearly impossible for Democrats. So, the Democrats had to struggle for ways to win the electoral votes of as many non-Southern states as possible. Democrats also had to reach for a new "Southern strategy," which seems to have meant having one or two Southerners on the Presidential ticket. (Of course, President Obama's "Southern strategy" was quite different.)

After McGovern's massive electoral loss--and some changes that had made choosing the Party's Presidential nominee more democratic than the "smoke-filled rooms," Democratic Party honchos conceived of the institution of "Super Delegates."

Super Delegates were one of the very undemocratic Democratic ways to prevent the Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party from being a liberal, even if Democrats had chosen a liberal nominee in the primaries. However, actual implementation of the Super Delegate concept did not occur until 1984--and you may remember how awful the 1984 defeat was.

IMO, this quote speaks volumes about why "the Dean scream" was on a loop day after day in the media:

"The superdelegates have not always prevailed, however. In the Democratic primary phase of the 2004 election, Howard Dean acquired an early lead in delegate counts by obtaining the support of a number of superdelegates before even the first primaries were held.<13> Nevertheless, John Kerry defeated Dean in a succession of primaries and caucuses and won the nomination."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdelegate

The quote can be taken with a large grain of salt. The DLC backed Kerry. Also, originally, Hillary Clinton had seemed to have a lot of support from the super delegates, but we later learned Obama had been the "smoke filled room" designee all along because of pre-existing Clinton "baggage."



Another interesting sidelight from the same source: "The Politico found that about half of the superdelegates are white men, compared to 28% of the Democratic primary electorate.<29>"



The Party apparently re-affirmed its love of super delegates. http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/02/democratic-party-to-keep-controversial-superdelegates.html



The influence of Southerners, and most often white male Southerners, is patent if you read about the origins of Super Delegates or about the origins of the DLC. Notable exceptions are Hillary Clinton, who was a co-founder of the DLC (as was Bill Clinton, her husband and obviously a white male Southerner) and Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut Democratic white male who sure loves him some conservative Republicans. (Note: I am referring of origins, not the current make up of the DLC or the current make up of Super Delegates--a great deal of overlap between the two, btw, so that the DLC is no longer important.)

Anyway, I think the DLC was an offshoot--maybe a result-- of the earlier movement that resulted in Super Delegates. I also believe that both the institution of Super Delegates and the DLC resulted from the Democratic Party's attempt to fill the gap left after the Solid South changed from solidly Democratic (post Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation) to solidly Democratic (post the Kennedy-LBJ ending of legally "blessed" Jim Crow.

Interesting, though, the many ways in which the stains of slavery and white male supremacism (or delusions thereof), continue to leave a mark through so many aspects of America, even today, eh?

and all good, valid points. I don't post in detail as I used to anymore on DU and I should as it would keep my mind and writing skills sharper.

Thanks for a MUCH more informative post.

Almost all of them play for the same team, and the name of that team is the Global Plutarchy.

From The Atlantic:

If you happened to be watching NBC on the first Sunday morning in August last summer, you would have seen something curious. There, on the set of Meet the Press, the host, David Gregory, was interviewing a guest who made a forceful case that the U.S. economy had become “very distorted.” In the wake of the recession, this guest explained, high-income individuals, large banks, and major corporations had experienced a “significant recovery”; the rest of the economy, by contrast—including small businesses and “a very significant amount of the labor force”—was stuck and still struggling. What we were seeing, he argued, was not a single economy at all, but rather “fundamentally two separate types of economy,” increasingly distinct and divergent.

This diagnosis, though alarming, was hardly unique: drawing attention to the divide between the wealthy and everyone else has long been standard fare on the left. (The idea of “two Americas” was a central theme of John Edwards’s 2004 and 2008 presidential runs.) What made the argument striking in this instance was that it was being offered by none other than the former five-term Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: iconic libertarian, preeminent defender of the free market, and (at least until recently) the nation’s foremost devotee of Ayn Rand. When the high priest of capitalism himself is declaring the growth in economic inequality a national crisis, something has gone very, very wrong.

This widening gap between the rich and non-rich has been evident for years. In a 2005 report to investors, for instance, three analysts at Citigroup advised that “the World is dividing into two blocs—the Plutonomy and the rest”:

In a plutonomy there is no such animal as “the U.S. consumer” or “the UK consumer”, or indeed the “Russian consumer”. There are rich consumers, few in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of income and consumption they take. There are the rest, the “non-rich”, the multitudinous many, but only accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie.

http://www.berfrois.com/2011/01/todays-super-rich/

... pass along their new costs/taxes to consumers? Or would they simply move more operations overseas (you know, claiming that they just can't make ends meet in the USA)? What would prevent that? Obviously, honor and corporate citizenship don't really make a difference... so how do you get them to stop sucking the government tit and NOT take it out on everyone else?

Heh... idle thought: Republicans always claim that people on welfare will come to depend on it, and that is a "bad thing," but now it seems that they are loathe to do an intervention for their favored welfare recipient, Big Oil.

--------------------

drum rooooollllllll, if subsides are taken away, ie the 5 oil companies don't get middle class taxes paid to them after making outlandish profits THAN THEY WILL HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE BUT TO GO UP ON MORE CHARGES TO US.

Understand

are already undercharging by that amount. Otherwise, pricing beyond equilibrium will result in reduced sales and revenues.

Overseas? They pay 50% to the Saudis because they are required to be partners with the government there.

So why do they get these subsidies and incredibly cheap taxes here? Because they can.

I will dance wildly the day that this filthy, obsolete industry is dead and buried.

...Even as the Gulf spill costs billions in taxpayer dollars, oil companies get billions in tax subsidies. Where is the outrage from the Tea Party?

FORCING this issue?

Backing them up, rather than giving republicans a free pass? Just curious.

you make an inflammatory statement, claiming I'm giving Republicans a "free pass," then try to turn the heat back down with a "just curious"???

That's like writing "No offense, but..." and then filling in the blank with something clearly offensive.

It's not enough that the Dems sponsored the bill, if they don't have the fire in the belly to fight for it. If I put a bumper sticker on my car saying "Obama 2012" - but don't actually get out and freaking vote - would you be satisfied?

Of course you wouldn't.

But, if they dont and we lose, I'm sure we will have some excuses.

the Senate or House care nothing about the average citizen.Those greedy bastards love money and power,they all need to be voted out of office or impeached.Democracy in America is a cruel joke.

Screw Landrieu, Begich, and BNelson.