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October 28, 2005

Sen. Chafee bucks party line to vote against refinery bill

Sen. Lincoln Chafee isn't winning any new friends among his Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill. On Wednesday, he sided with the eight Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to kill a bill intended to spur the building of new oil refineries.

Congressional Quarterly reports that the bill, introduced by committee chairman James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., would have allowed states to opt into a new program streamlining the permitting process for new refinery projects. It also would have encouraged the siting of new refineries on former military bases and authorize federal funding for state and local organizations working to redevelop those sites.

Here's a summary of the bill, and here is the full text, both from the Library of Congress.

The bill got a 9-9 tie vote, which killed the bill.

Chafee voted against the bill because he had a number of concerns about it, his spokesman, Stephen Hourahan told me today.

"He was concerned it weakened environmental protections and eroded state and local perogatives," Hourahan said. It could have opened the door to a refineries being built on former military properties, such as those in Portsmouth, "without any of the local input or restrictions we would like to have." The bill also didn't address oil consumption, such as raising the federal CAFE standards that set the minimum miles-per-gallon ratings for cars and light trucks.

Interestingly, the story is being played differently, depending on the source. Human Events Online, a national conservative weekly, headlines its story today about the vote: Chafee Votes to Keep Gas Prices High / R.I. Liberal Joins Democrats to Oppose Refinery Bill.

Here's how Human Events covered the story:

The eight committee Democrats won over liberal Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.-R.I.), whose vote against Chairman Jim Inhofe's Gas PRICE Act (S 1772) means Republicans will have to take other steps if they want to push a refinery bill through the Senate this year.

Inhofe (R.-Okla.) told HUMAN EVENTS he pleaded with Chafee to vote with the committee's nine other Republicans on the measure because Democrats were opposing the bill for purely partisan reasons. In the end, however, Chafee sided with Democrats.

"I went to Lincoln Chafee," Inhofe told HUMAN EVENTS in an exclusive interview, "and I said, 'Lincoln, I know you're from Rhode Island, and I know from time to time you have to cave in to these people because you're in a tight election, but their motivation is to blame Republicans for something the Republicans didn't do, and you're a Republican.'"

Meanwhile, the environmentally conscious Sierra Club issued a press release on its reaction to the demise of the refinery bill:

WASHINGTON -- In a victory for clean air and the health of American communities, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee refused to vote out a bill by Committee Chair Sen.Inhofe (R, OK) that would have weakened environmental protections and given subsidies and handouts to the polluting oil industry. The bill was defeated by a 9-9 vote with all the Committee Democrats and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R. RI) opposing this harmful legislation that attempted to exploit the tragedies of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita by decreasing public involvement and oversight in oil refinery permitting, and limiting the ability of individual states to promote cleaner fuels.

Posted by Tim Barmann at October 28, 2005 10:30 AM

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Posted by: Marcus at October 28, 2005 03:22 PM

Posted by: Bob at October 28, 2005 03:33 PM

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