White House: Oil subsidy fight isn’t over

The White House is vowing a continued campaign to repeal billions of dollars' worth of oil industry tax breaks after a Democratic bill to nix several incentives sputtered on the Senate floor Tuesday.

White House press secretary Jay Carney, in a statement Tuesday night, called the 52-48 Senate vote that blocked the bill progress even though 60 supporters were needed to advance the measure.

“The vote today — with support from over half the U.S. Senate — is an important step toward repealing these unwarranted subsidies for the oil and gas industry. The administration will continue to pursue this important reform,” he said.

Senate Democratic leadership is vowing to keep the issue alive in wider talks with Republicans and the White House on deficit reduction.

Carney also took a shot at Republicans in his statement on the procedural vote, which saw two Republicans vote to advance the bill while three Democrats joined 45 Republicans in voting against it.

“It is disappointing that at a time when oil companies are posting near-record profits, Republican leadership in the Senate led an effort to protect billions of dollars in tax breaks for the oil and gas industry that even oil and gas CEOs in the past have admitted are unwarranted and unnecessary,” Carney said.

He noted “there are more responsible ways to spend tens of billions of federal dollars, including investments that will help protect American consumers from high gas prices.”

That careful wording highlights differing views on whether savings from a repeal should be used for deficit reduction, which the Democratic legislation calls for, or expanded green energy spending, which would occur under the White House budget plan.

Ahead of the vote Tuesday, a separate White House statement cheered both options. 

“The administration believes these resources are better used for efforts that will help the American people, such as deficit reduction or investments in clean homegrown sources of energy,” the White House said.