Thread: Boehner’s effort to move House $260B highway bill lacks support

Boehner’s effort to move House $260B highway bill lacks support
By Russell Berman - 03/08/12 11:55 AM ET

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday said he plans to pass the Senate highway bill after an 11th hour effort to take up the House bill this month faltered.

“As I told the members yesterday, the current plan is to see what the Senate can produce and to bring their bill up,” Boehner told reporters at his weekly news conference Thursday.

“In the meantime, we’re going to continue to have conversations with our members about a longer-term approach, which frankly most of our members want. But at this point in time, the plan is to bring up the Senate bill — or something like it.”

In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, the Speaker made another push for a $260 billion, five-year transportation bill that had struggled to gain support in the GOP ranks. He said that unless the House acted on its own, it would have to consider a two-year, $109 billion Senate bill that appears likely to pass in the coming days.

GOP leaders spent the rest of the day talking to members to see if Boehner’s pitch had drawn enough support to bring the five-year bill to the floor. The Speaker’s comments on Thursday morning suggest it had not, at least not yet. The House goes on recess next week, and the current surface transportation programs expire March 31.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced a deal on Wednesday night on amendments to be considered to the Senate bill. That agreement could clear approval of the legislation, possibly by next week.

This story was updated at 1:38 p.m.



Boehner

Just in case some of you may not know what the Senate Highway bill is or is about.. the thing is I can't get the link to work on this news letter I got, they just sent me a updated link so it works now



Dear Freedom Action Activist,

The Senate highway bill has been stalled for weeks on the Senate floor, but last night Democrats and Republicans suddenly made a deal to vote on a number of important amendments beginning today and to take a final vote next week.

Several of these amendments are critical to America’s energy future. At stake is whether Americans will have a future of abundant, affordable energy or whether the federal government will continue to subsidize uncompetitive energy sources that actually raise energy prices.

Click here to send an e-mail to your Senators to tell them that you support policies that will increase energy supplies and lower energy prices and oppose those that use your taxpayer dollars to subsidize special interests. Please do this now because the Senate is going to start voting on these amendments this afternoon—Thursday, March 8th.

The pro-energy amendments include:

Permitting construction of the Keystone Pipeline from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Texas and Louisiana
Opening federal offshore areas to oil production
Blocking one of EPA’s most expensive new job-killing regulations—the Boiler MACT Rule
Ending all energy tax subsidies (which benefit corporate special interests at the expense of taxpayers and consumers)

The bad amendments include:

Extending subsidies for wind power (which leads to more wind farms being built, which leads to higher electric rates)
Creating new subsidies for natural gas vehicles to benefit billionaire crony capitalists T. Boone Pickens and George Soros

I don’t want to get your hopes up. Each of these amendments will take 60 out of 100 votes to pass. The good news is that the bad ones are not likely to pass. The bad news is that the good ones are not likely to pass, either.

However, it is important to get as many votes as possible supporting pro-energy and anti-subsidy policies. That’s why I encourage you to click here now to e-mail your two Senators.



Yours for Freedom and Prosperity,

Myron Ebell

Director

Freedom Action

http://www.capwiz.com/freedomaction/...077086&type=CO