Although the House is expected to vote tomorrow on “oil spill” legislation (The CLEAR Act), things aren’t going as well over on the other side of the Capitol. According to The Hill:

“Senate Democrats and Republicans appear on a collision course that would sink chances of passing oil-spill and energy legislation amid disagreements over both substance and process.”

House Democrats must be experiencing a sense of déjà vu, having just recently been abandoned by the Senate on cap-and-trade legislation. As reported this week in the Washington Post:

“This has left some House Democrats feeling badly served by their leaders. Although lawmakers are reluctant to say so publicly, their aides and campaign advisers privately complain that the speaker and the president left Democrats exposed on an unpopular issue that has little hope of being signed into law.”

It’s understandable that House Democrats, already on the hook for voting for a job-killing cap-and-trade national energy tax, might be nervous about also defending a vote on another job-killing energy tax in the CLEAR Act if the Senate won’t be there to back them up.

After all, a vote for the CLEAR Act is a vote for:

• $22 billion energy tax increase
• $30 billion in new mandatory spending
• Killing American jobs
• Raising energy prices
• Increasing dependence on foreign oil

“Speaker Pelosi is marching House Democrats off a tax-and-spend plank with the CLEAR Act while Senate Democrats are poised to skedaddle without passing a matching bill,” said Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings.

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House Natural Resources Committee Republican Press Office
Contact: Jill Strait or Spencer Pederson
202-226-2311

http://republicans.resourcescommittee.house.gov
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Read the full Dear Colleague HERE