Director of Government Relations :: Larry Hart
While the House left town a week early for an unprecedented 6 week vacation, the Senate is once again tied up in knots over Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s refusal to allow Republican amendments that would make some Democrats look bad and the ability of the 41 Republicans to stick together on this one issue. On the bill to “aid” small business, appointed Senator George Lemieux of Florida provided the 60th vote needed to add a “small bank bailout” provision to the bill. This would give the treasury a $30 billion fund to “encourage” small banks to lend more to small business in much the same way the TARP injected funds into large financial institutions. But Lemieux then backed off further support of the bill until Reid agreed to allow further amendments. One of the amendments at issue would repeal a “tax compliance” law passed to help pay for the health care bill, which requires every small business to file a tax form every time they pay out or receive a payment of $600 or more. There is so much concern over this issue by small business, many Democrats have jumped on the bandwagon. This is somewhat embarrassing to supporters of Obamacare as it could be considered the first very small step toward repealing its provisions. So the small business bill is in limbo for now.
Next, the energy bill. Having abandoned cap and trade, Reid now has a bill to change the laws on offshore drilling that would also eliminate any cap on liability for an offshore spill. Although this measure is a response to the BP spill, it’s clear that unlimited liability would favor large companies like BP and prevent smaller companies from competing, often the end result of government regulation. So it looks like this bill will also fall short of 60 votes to proceed this week. Unless Reid relents on the amendment issue, that leaves the nomination of Elena Kagan as the final vote before the Senate takes a break. Reid would have liked to push that debate as late in the week as possible to make it difficult for Kagan’s opponents to have the usual three or more days of floor time. To do that, he needed something to fill up the time. He didn’t have it and thus has been forced to start the debate Tuesday. Stay tuned.
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