Senate Dems, GOP squabble may sink spill bill

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.  
 
Democratic leaders Wednesday foretold the likely failure of the package and blamed Republicans for obstructing it and other legislation.
 
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that Senate Republican critique of the problems in the spill and energy package is “as if you were in Alice in Wonderland.”

“Black was white, up was down, sideways was vertical,” Reid told reporters at a press conference announcing the plan. “It’s just too bad that we can’t have cooperation to get something done ... on a bipartisan basis.”
 
Reid emphasized that each of the bill’s four sections include language supported in both parties.
 
“This bill, I repeat, is bipartisan — it creates jobs, and lessens our dependence on foreign oil,” he said. “A pretty good combination.”
 
Republican leaders said Wednesday they cannot support the bill in its current form — mainly due to language retroactively removing a liability cap for oil-and-gas producers — and also want assurances they can offer amendments.
 
Reid said he would discuss amendments if an initial vote limiting debate just to proceed to the bill receives the necessary 60 votes.
 
“Well, if we get on the bill, we’ll see,” Reid said.
 
But it does not seem likely that Reid would have enough support to start debate, given both Republican and some Democratic concerns over the liability cap issue.
 
Since the spill and energy package is sandwiched in between consideration of small-business legislation and a debate over Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination, there may only be one or two days available to debate the package.
 
“This is designed to fail,” a Senate GOP leadership aide said.
 
“Listen, if we have formulas for failures it’s going to be the Republicans who are going to determine failure,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), chief author of the unlimited liability cap language. “They have to decide whether or not they’re just going to say no to everything including a debate on up-or-down votes.”
 
Reid does not seem to have corralled all of his Democrats, though, on the spill and energy package.
 
Menendez said he is talking with Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) about the liability cap language.
 
“I am open to figuring out a process in which the taxpayers never are held responsible for any dollars out of their pockets … as well as making sure that those who are damaged have the access to get fully compensated,” he said. “If I can be shown a liability scheme that meets those standards, I’m willing to consider it.”
 
Landrieu and Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) are trying to find a compromise between the Democrats’ unlimited liability cap and the Republican idea of giving the president the authority to set liability limits based on 13 criteria, including a company’s safety record and the risk involved in an offshore drilling project.
 
Landrieu and Begich have suggested an idea — modeled after federal nuclear energy regulations — that require all oil-and-gas producers to collectively share the liability responsibility for a spill.