House to debate transportation bill in pieces

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Tuesday that the House will debate a wide-ranging energy and transportation package on the floor this week as several separate pieces of legislation.

The decision to move the 979-page package in pieces allows for “each major component of the plan to be debated and amended more openly, rather than as a single ‘comprehensive’ bill with limited debate and limited opportunity for amendment,” Boehner and Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) said in a joint statement.

Boehner bashed what he called Democrats’ “preference for large bills with limited debate and minimal opportunities for amendment.”

The lawmakers added that the House will debate the package this week despite potential floor action on a bill to extend the payroll tax cut. They said they are “determined to allow as many members to participate and offer their amendments on the floor as possible.”

The package includes an energy component that would help fund transportation and infrastructure programs with revenues from expanded offshore oil-and-gas leasing and opening Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil drilling.

The bill would also reverse President Obama’s decision last month to reject the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline.

The House Natural Resources approved three separate bills earlier this month that form the energy component of the package.

House lawmakers have offered a slew of energy-related amendments to the package, including measures to roll back Environmental Protection Agency regulations and cut oil industry tax breaks.

The Rules Committee will meet Tuesday night to decided which amendments will get floor votes.

Read more about the amendments here.