House green jobs bill already hitting Senate head winds

The effort by House Ways and Means members to create a green-energy tax bill costing approximately $17 billion is already hitting head winds in the Senate because the legislation's cost is offset by repealing tax breaks aimed at the oil and gas industry. 

"I think [passage] would be very doubtful," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 

"We had a vote not too long ago just on that same issue in term of those taxes, and support clearly wasn't there," Murkowski added. 

During the recent debate on the so-called tax extenders bill, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) failed to repeal about $35 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks by a 35 to 61 vote. Several Democrats joined Republicans in opposing the measure.

Murkowski thinks a similar outcome would occur if the House advanced legislation to the Senate that repealed these provisions. 

House Ways and Means Chairman Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) hopes to put forward a bill next month that would provide tax incentives for creating green-energy jobs. 

Details on the proposal have not been released, but extending the Section 48C program that provides a 30 percent tax credit for investments in manufacturing clean energy products could be included in the package.

Whether Levin will host a markup on the legislation remains unclear. Its fate will be determined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), sources told The Hill. 

House leaders are weighing whether to make July 'green jobs' month. They might want to circumvent the vetting process and pass the bill before Congress adjourns for the August break. 

Other sources say House leaders have a political motive for foregoing the bill's vetting process and instead advance it to the Senate where paid-for tax legislation rarely survives intact.

House passage of a green jobs bill would highlight the fact that the House can pass legislation that contains offsets while the Senate has trouble doing so. 

With November's election becoming a greater priority in August and several Democratic representatives already worried about surviving it, speedy House passage of the bill would illustrate to constituents that many of the problems in Congress reside in the Senate's inability to move legislation and not in the House, sources told The Hill.