Just as predicted, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democrats have decided to skip town without even voting on an oil spill response bill, leaving their House Democrat colleagues to defend their recent vote on the job-killing, new-$22-billion-energy-tax-imposing CLEAR Act (H.R. 3534) during the August recess. This is just another example of House Democrat leadership forcing their rank-and-file to take unpopular votes, only to be left out to dry by their Senate colleagues.

“It’s no surprise that Senate Democrats do not want to vote on an oil spill bill that will cost jobs in the Gulf Coast and increase energy prices when Americans can least afford it,” said Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Doc Hastings (WA-04). “Just like the overwhelmingly unpopular cap-and-trade national energy tax, Speaker Pelosi forced House Democrats to cast unabashed liberal votes based on the charade that the Senate would follow and provide political cover. House Democrats marched to Pelosi’s higher taxes, higher spending orders on the CLEAR Act only to be left holding the bag while Senate Democrats skip town. Democrats in both the House and Senate sought to push unrelated, tax-increasing, job-killer bills in the name of responding to the Gulf Coast tragedy, rather than truly working to achieve a bipartisan bill that will actually help Gulf Coast families, the environment and make offshore drilling safer.”

For House Democrats, the CLEAR Act was a vote for:

• $22 billion energy tax increase
• $30 billion in new mandatory spending totally unrelated to the oil spill
• Killing American jobs and putting Gulf Coast companies out-of-business
• Raising energy prices
• Increasing dependence on foreign oil

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