Update 2:15 PM: Congress has approved a six-month extension of emergency jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. The House gave the measure final approval and sent it on to the White House.------------
The Senate began consideration of a resolution marking the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, S. Res. 591. Following 2 hours of debate, the Senate will take up H.J. Res. 83, the Burma Sanctions Resolution for up to 20 minutes of debate and will then vote on the resolutions.
Following the votes, the Senate will return to the small business bill, H.R. 5297. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is blocking amendments from other senators, but has allowed two Democrat amendments which he filed cloture on: the Reid-Baucus substitute amendment and the Landrieu amendment which amounts to a mini-bailout.
Yesterday, the Senate vote of 59-39 to concur to House amendment to H.R. 4213, the unemployment benefits extension bill The bill adds $34 billion to the national debt. The House is expected vote and pass the bill today.
Prior to that vote, the Senate rejected 5 motions to suspend the rules to allow Republican amendments to the unemployment insurance extension. All needed 67 votes to be successful. One, offered by Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), would have extended unemployment benefits for 6 months by paying for the costs with unallocated stimulus money. It failed by a vote of 42-56.
Two of the rejected motions were offered by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). One would have offset the Democrats’ unemployment benefits extension with spending cuts. The other would have required the Senate website to display spending exempted from pay-as-you-go requirements on its website. The remaining motions were offered by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). One would have permanently repealed the estate tax and the other would have prohibited federal funds for a lawsuit against Arizona’s immigration laws.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell expressed outrage not at extending unemployment benefits but at failing to pay for the bill and for teh government continuing to stifle job creation. He said, “[I]n the middle of a jobs crisis, [Democrats] continue to push one bill after another containing job stifling taxes, new rules and regulations, and government intrusion into business. Their signature piece of jobs legislation appears to be a bill that borrows $34 billion from our grandchildren to help folks who can’t find a job in the environment Democrats have created over the past year and half.” And Democrats appear to be eager to move to another piece of legislation that is certain to kill jobs and raise taxes on Americans at a time of near-10% unemployment, an energy bill based around a carbon cap-and-trade scheme.
Two weeks ago, The Hill reported, “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to bring broad energy legislation to the Senate floor as soon as the week of July 26 that will include provisions to limit greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants. ‘We hope to be able to do it the week after next,’ he told reporters in the Capitol Tuesday.” But even before that, many Democrats were deeply skeptical of any cap-and-trade bill, and Reid has struggled to not only find agreement among his fellow Democrats, but also to find time for such a bill between bills that add to the debt and a Supreme Court nomination.
Today, Democrats are in such disarray on energy and climate legislation that they’re meeting to try and figure out what to do from here. According to CQ "Senate Democrats will confer behind closed doors Thursday about energy legislation, amid fresh doubts about the timing and scope of a bill they hope to bring to the floor next week.” Just yesterday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the majority whip, said to Roll Call about a climate bill, “We’re not doing it before we leave in August.” But an hour later, Roll Call reported, “A spokesman for Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Wednesday that the Illinois Democrat ‘misspoke’ when he said the Senate is unlikely to take up energy legislation next week because of schedule constraints.”
CQ reports today, “Other Democrats, including Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., say they continue to wait for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to decide how — or whether — to proceed on energy. A Reid spokesman said in an e-mail that no decision had been made on whether to delay the energy debate until fall, a possibility raised Wednesday by Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill. Durbin’s staff later backtracked on his comments.”
But Democrats may not have to wait until the fall, or even next week for their energy policies to constrain job growth. In an article titled “As U.S. suspends deep-water oil drilling, other nations move ahead,” The Washington Post writes today, “Some of these countries stand to gain from the uncertainties in the United States prompted by the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This month, Diamond Offshore Drilling announced that it is sending one of its deep-water drilling rigs from the gulf to Egypt. . . . Last week, Diamond said another Gulf of Mexico rig called the Ocean Confidence would depart for Congo. On Tuesday, Marathon Oil Chief Executive Clarence P. Cazalot Jr. said that his company might divert a rig being built in Singapore and due to be delivered to the Gulf of Mexico in December. ‘If I can't use it in the gulf, I won't bring it to the gulf,’ he said.”
As Sen. McConnell said, “For more than a year and a half, the President and his Democrat allies on Capitol Hill have pushed an anti-business, anti-jobs agenda on the American people in the form of one massive government intrusion after another. And then they celebrate.” From the stimulus to the health care law to the financial regulation law, Democrats all congratulated each other on these ill-conceived policies that are either doing nothing to help our economy recover or actively costing Americans jobs. And now Democrats are looking to do the same thing with energy. The administration’s drilling moratorium threatens thousands of jobs along the Gulf Coast and the Democrats’ climate bill features a national energy tax at the worst possible time. It’s long past time for a change of course towards an agenda that creates jobs and grows the economy instead of one that grows government and adds to the debt.
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