The fight in the Senate

[bananas]

Source: John Kerry

The fight in the Senate
Posted by John Kerry at 12:22 PM on 14 Jun 2007

Hello! I just wanted drop by Gristmill to give all of you an update on the energy bill. To no one's surprise, the Republicans are throwing sand in the gears and trying to block any meaningful progress.

The energy bill, as it stands, is not nearly strong enough, so there are a number of amendments that must be adopted to give us a bill that actually gets us started on that path of dealing with our energy crisis and our climate crisis.

But when we tried to bring up the Bingaman amendment that requires the use of alternative energy sources, the Republicans in the Senate simply refused to vote up or down on it, essentially demanding that these amendments get 60 votes to even be considered. The procedural details of what they're doing and our responses get pretty arcane pretty quickly, but as I type this in the midmorning we're currently locked in a battle to move all of this forward.

<snip>

Thanks for your time. Being in the thick of all of the floor fights, I'm not sure if I'll be able to respond to any comments today, but I'll try, and I'll at least read through them all at the end of the day.


Read more: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/6/14/94059/1612

---

Related Huffington Post article: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=100044&mesg_id=100044