He says other bills went further to open new tracts for drilling along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the eastern Gulf of Mexico
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., was one of five Republican to vote Wednesday against legislation introduced by Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to expedite and expand offshore oil drilling.
View full sizeThis oil rig and supply vessel were photographed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana on April 10. Vitter said he opposed the measure, which in most respects tracked bills passed by the Republican House, because he said it didn't go as far as the House bills in opening new tracts along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and in the eastern Gulf for drilling. It also included a provision that would have gone beyond current Interior Department regulations and required exploration plans to have containment response provisions that had been reviewed by a third party.
"I think this is a completely unnecessary extra burden, extra hurdle, extra layer of requirement. We need to make the permitting process smoother, more streamlined, more accelerated, not move in the opposite direction," Vitter said in his floor speech on the McConnell bill.
The measure failed, on a vote of 42-57, to get anywhere near the 60 votes it would have needed to proceed, just as a Democratic plan, introduced by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., to take away $21 billion in tax deductions and incentives from the Big Five oil companies over the next 10 years, also failed, on a 52-48 vote Tuesday.
Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., one of only three Democrats to vote against the Menendez measure, voted along with the rest of her party against the McConnell bill, though her reasons were very different than those of most of her fellow Democrats.
Landrieu's primary objection to McConnell's approach is that it would do nothing to provide Louisiana and other coastal states with a share of the revenues produced from oil and gas production in federal waters off their coast before 2017, when, because of earlier legislation crafted by Landrieu and former Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., revenue sharing will begin for the four coastal states.
Landrieu and Vitter had issued a rare joint statement Tuesday, describing themselves as the "two senators most familiar with the Gulf energy shutdown," and characterizing the Menendez bill as one that "simply demagogues the issue," and the McConnell bill as one that would "slow down the permitting process instead of streamlining and accelerating it," and that, in an allusion to revenue sharing, "also fails to recognize the important role that states like Louisiana and Texas play in offshore oil production."
In addition to Vitter, the other Republicans voting against the McConnell bill were Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Richard Shelby of Alabama, Mike Lee of Utah and Olympia Snowe of Maine.
The McConnell bill would have, among other things, set time limits on permitting decisions, scheduled lease sales in the western and central Gulf of Mexico and off the coasts of Virginia and Alaska, and extended leases interrupted by the drilling moratorium. While the Obama administration does not object to this last provision, and has already extended 10 such leases, it warned other provisions would imperil the safety and environmental regime established after last year's oil spill.
House Energy Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., who chairs the Subcommittee on Energy and Power, were in New Orleans on Wednesday with Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., as part of an offshore energy tour. At a press conference, they said that it is now up to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and President Barack Obama, to find ways to reach common ground on efforts to expand energy production.
Upton said that his committee, or the House Natural Resources Committee, which reported out the three bills that passed the House this month, will continue to churn out legislation to increase energy production so that there "would be votes practically every week" through the summer.
Whitfield said it is incumbent upon the president to whip his party, and especially his own administration, in line on expanding production.
"While the president is saying one thing and leading the public to believe he's doing everything possible to speed up drilling in America, the fact is that both the Interior Department, which does permitting in the Gulf, and the EPA, which is responsible for permitting elsewhere, are not following his lead," Whitfield said.
"Our bills passed with large bipartisan majorities," said Scalise, who said he is confident that "if we all sat down together," a deal could be struck, and that "putting revenue sharing on the table could bring more votes in."
Jonathan Tilove can be reached at jtilove@timespicayune.com or 202.857.5125.