‘Big Oil’ bill falls short of passage in Senate

By Karoun Demirjian

Friday, March 30, 2012 | 5:35 p.m.

It was business as usual this week as the Senate voted on repealing tax subsidies for big oil and gas companies — and came far short of passing the measure.

The Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies bill, the Democrats’ clearly titled venture to swap longstanding tax credits for oil and gas companies for cleaner energy incentives, got only 51 votes -- less than the 60 votes necessary for a filibuster-proof majority.

“The oil industry is doing just fine. With record profits and rising production, I’m not worried about the big oil companies,” President Barack Obama said before the vote Thursday. “That’s why I think it’s time they got by without more help from taxpayers who are already having a tough enough time paying the bills and filling up their gas tank.”

Oil and gas tax credits have been one of the Democrats’ biggest campaign issues as they head toward the November elections. But this week, the topic turned into a game of political kickball between the two parties -- at least within the Nevada delegation.

Republican Sen. Dean Heller has sustained a barrage of attacks from his chief rival for the Senate, Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley, over several votes he has taken to shore up tax credits for oil and gas companies -- loopholes he has said are an appropriate subject for discussion only as part of a sweeping tax overhaul.

But then Heller turned around this week and filed a counter-offer to the Democrats’ bill: a repeal of oil and gas tax credits that would put the money toward opening more areas to drill for oil, funding oil pipelines, and reducing the national gas tax -- by one penny. A spokesman for Heller disparaged the alternative energy programs that would receive the oil and gas money under the Democrats’ bill as failed stimulus ventures, and listed among the merits of Heller’s bill that it was “revenue-neutral.”

The Democrat-sponsored oil and gas subsidy repeal bill puts some of the money saved toward deficit reduction; Heller’s does not.

Heller’s amendment -- which would have basically repurposed the entire underlying bill, save the top-line repeal of the oil and gas subsidies -- never came up for a vote, and Heller, as expected, voted against the Democrats’ original bill Thursday, along with most of the Republican caucus and three Democrats -- Mark Begich of Alaska, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- whose states are closely tied to the oil industry. Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine joined the Democrats to vote in favor of the legislation.