The Senate, by a 2-1 margin, approved an energy package Thursday that would raise fuel mileage requirements for cars, pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles and expand the use of alternative energy sources.
Energy tax could be revived
But Democrats were forced to jettison the tax provisions after failing to garner enough votes to avoid a Republican-threatened filibuster.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Friday insisted the tax package is not dead.
"We're going to find a way to bring it back," Reid said.
While the tax provisions were dumped from the energy bill, they could be attached to another vehicle — perhaps an agriculture bill, Reid said.
The package would have imposed a new severance tax ranging from 12.5 percent to 14 percent on oil and natural gas produced from the Gulf of Mexico's federal waters.
The measure also would have excluded the nation's five largest oil companies — ExxonMobil, Chevron Corp., Shell Oil Co., BP and ConocoPhillips — from a scheduled rollback in the corporate tax rate.
A similar House measure, approved by the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, also would keep energy companies from enjoying the corporate tax break, but would apply to all oil and gas companies.
The energy bill approved by the Senate Thursday would raise fuel mileage requirements for cars, pickups, minivans and sport utility vehicles to an average 35 miles per gallon by 2020, up about 10 miles per gallon from current levels.
The bill also would set new efficiency standards for a variety of products and require that motorists use 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022.
While the Bush administration quibbles with some of the details, it supports the overall thrust of those measures.
But it objected to two provisions.
One, nicknamed NOPEC, would brand as illegal the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries' efforts to control world oil prices. The other would make price gouging at the gas pump a federal crime.
President Bush's advisers have urged him to veto any bill that contains those two provisions, though he has not said whether he would.
Bush has vetoed only three bills during his presidency — most recently Wednesday, when he rejected a bill that would have allowed federal funds for stem cell research.
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