Republicans Ask Oil Industry for Help With Fuel Prices
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/national/nationalspecial/26cong.html
Representatives Eric Cantor, Deborah Pryce, J. Dennis Hastert and
David Dreier were among those in the House asking oil companies to take
steps to increase the fuel supply and lower the price of gasoline.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 - After forcing through two pieces of legislation
with significant benefits for the oil industry this year, House Republican
leaders on Tuesday called for oil companies to return the favor by
building new refineries and taking other steps to increase fuel supply
and lower gas prices.
While the House struggled, the Senate continued to move toward a vote next
week on its own package of about $35 billion in spending cuts as the
Finance Committee, on a party-line vote of 11 to 9, approved legislative
proposals estimated to save $10 billion in Medicaid and Medicare over
the next five years.
Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon, said the measure struck
"a very delicate balance," trimming payments to health care providers
without hurting beneficiaries.
Democrats, who have uniformly opposed the cuts in the House and the Senate,
said the committee should first have taken action to guarantee
health care for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
A group of Senate Republicans pressing for more reductions to pay for the
cost of hurricane relief laid out some of their specific proposals for
offsetting the emergency aid, proposing an estimated $125 billion in savings.
Among their proposals were a pay freeze for all federal employees excluding
law enforcement and military personnel, a two-year delay in the start
of new Medicare drug coverage and a 5 percent cut in all federal spending
other than national security.
Democrats criticized not only the Republican plan for spending cuts but also
the new House approach to oil prices, which followed approval this year of a
major energy bill and a separate refinery measure that delivered billions of
dollars in industry subsidies and other incentives to oil companies.
"Unfortunately for Speaker Hastert and his special-interest cronies,"
said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee, "one photo-op press conference isn't going to change the fact
that he has been pushing the very legislation that has led to record profits
for the oil industry every chance he gets."
Mr. Hastert and other senior Republicans said they did not intend to try
to force the industry into action and were not considering a new tax on oil
profits. But they said the industry needed to take steps to prevent
price gouging and to show Americans that some of the gains were being put
back into projects that could aid consumers being squeezed at the pump.
______________________________________________________________
.
|
