Where The Rubber Meets The Road (9/26/08)

As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.

House

Offshore drilling, renewable energy. Voting 236-189, the House passed a bill (HR 6899) that would open additional areas of the Outer Continental Shelf to drilling and devote a large share of royalties to developing renewable fuels. The bill would permit drilling beyond 100 miles off the Atlantic and Pacific shorelines, or as close as 50 miles with permission of the adjacent state.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Y. Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).

Voting no: Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.) and H. James Saxton (R., N.J.).

Not voting: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.).

GOP drilling plan. Voting 191-226, the House defeated a Republican alternative to HR 6899 (above) that, in part, sought to allow drilling as close as 25 miles off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts with permission of the adjacent state; would have expanded drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico; would have provided coastal states with a share of drilling royalties; would have spurred nuclear and clean-coal energy technologies; and would have provided tax incentives to speed the development of renewable fuels.

A yes vote backed the GOP drilling bill.

Voting yes: Castle, Dent, Gerlach, Holden and Saxton.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Fattah, LoBiondo, Murphy, Schwartz, Sestak and Smith.

Not voting: Pitts.

As you can see, this week was as productive for Joe Pitts as he probably will ever get (and to help Bruce Slater, click here).

It really gets me that these two bills couldn’t have been reconciled somehow. I’m not real big on so-called “clean coal,” but the “tax incentives to speed the development of renewable fuels” sounds good, as opposed to waiting for drilling royalties to pay for that. However, “the expansion of drilling into the eastern Gulf of Mexico” part, as well as the 25-mile limit versus the 50-mile limit, doesn’t sit well with me either.

And I can understand the political machinations at work whereby Jim (Dead-Of-Night-Anti-Lois-Murphy-Robocalls) Gerlach would oppose the Democratic plan but favor the Repug one, and I really don’t care about Mike Castle’s “yes” votes to both, but how dumb is “Bush Dog” Tim Holden for voting for the plan sponsored by his own party and the Repug alternative?

District of Columbia guns. Voting 266-152, the House sent the Senate a bill (HR 6842) removing most restrictions on gun possession in the District of Columbia. The bill awaits Senate action.

A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Dent, Gerlach, Holden, LoBiondo, Murphy and Saxton.

Voting no: Andrews, Brady, Castle, Fattah, Schwartz, Sestak and Smith.

Not voting: Pitts.

Speaking of “Bush Dogs” (and I never thought I’d refer to him as such), my disgust with Patrick Murphy over this vote was palpable here (and here is a message for our senators who hopefully will be able to put a stop to this cowardly nonsense).

Senate

2009 military budget. Voting 88-8, the Senate approved $612.5 billion in 2009 military spending, including $70 billion to fund wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for part of the fiscal year. The bill (S 3001) sets a 3.9 percent military pay raise, bars permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, bans premium or co-pay increases in the military health plan known as TRICARE, and provides $5 billion in earmarks.
A yes vote was to pass the bill.

Voting yes: Thomas Carper (D., Del.), Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.), Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) and Arlen Specter (R., Pa.).

Not voting: Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.).

Kagro X at The Daily Kos had some background on this here…

There's an interesting fight still looming on the bill over -- what else? -- earmarks. You may recall the executive order issued by Bush earlier this year, directing federal agencies to ignore earmarks made in the committee reports that accompany authorization and appropriations bills (and indeed all bills). Earmarks typically are written into the report language and not directly into the bills themselves. That gives the necessary wiggle room to ignore them, since the committee reports aren't actually part of the legislation passed.

The response of the Senate Defense authorizers? Put language in the bill that deems the report's list to be a part of the bill. The looming fight? An amendment to strike that language from the bill. Levin says he'll block a vote on that amendment, but Bush says he'll veto any bill that keeps that language in.

Sounds like fun.

This week, the House debated the 2009 defense budget and the rights of credit-card holders, while the Senate considered bills on offshore drilling and renewable-energy tax breaks. Both chambers will debate stopgap spending bills for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

(And of course, looming over all of this is the bailout plan, and it’s anybody’s guess how much time will be dominated in the days – weeks? – ahead over that.)