As previously noted, Senator Daschle surprised his fellow Senators on April 27 by attempting to amend Senator McCain's internet taxation bill with the ethanol provisions of the energy bill. Here's the text of what Senator Daschle said that day as he was dropping his amendment. Daschle blamed the MTBE provisions in the energy bill for its failure to pass:
Mr. DASCHLE: However, the Energy bill conference report stalled last November because of bipartisan opposition to the special interest MTBE liability relief provision included in that legislation, in spite of the efforts made by many of us to warn that is exactly what would happen. Dropping the liability protection from the bill for both MTBE and ethanol would have attracted more than enough votes to enact the Energy bill. Yet despite the direct intervention by President Bush, the defenders of MTBE liability relief remain defiant.
Soon after Daschle dropped his amendment, Senator Lott noted that this would be a surprise to Senator McCain:
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I was not aware, and I do not believe the manager of the legislation who is temporarily off the floor was aware, this amendment would be offered at this time. He will return shortly. I am sure there are going to be some discussions about the amendment and the appropriate way for us to deal with it.
Indeed, Senator McCain was not happy when he returned to Senate floor, as previously noted:
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I regret that I was not here at the time the Democratic leader offered his amendment. But, of course, it would not have mattered really much whether I was here....
And here we go, now we are going to spend late this afternoon jockeying back and forth. I am sure there may be a headline in South Dakota that says: Senator Daschle fights for ethanol. I bet there will be a whole lot of press releases, too, and maybe even the distinguished Senator from North Dakota will be fighting for ethanol, too. Meanwhile, we are not addressing the issues that the American people care about.
As also noted, Daschle did get his headline from the Argus Leader. Here's something to be emphasized. Daschle's working assumption when he offered his amendment was that the MTBE provisions were preventing passage of the energy bill. After Daschle's amendment was dropped however, Senator Domenici dropped a 2nd degree amendment in the form of the comprehensive energy package WITHOUT the MTBE provision, i.e. the reason Daschle stated the bill wouldn't pass. Since the Daschle amendment wasn't taken seriously--even the National Corn Growers were opposed--the real action was on Domenici's MTBE-less energy bill. It failed to receive the necessary 60 votes for cloture 55-43. Again, in November and in April Daschle blamed the failure of the energy bill on the MTBE provision (see this) and said he could get the bill passed without it. Again, Daschle's amendment was offered for political effect, as Senator McCain explained on the floor. Again, Daschle's statements about the MTBE provisions are false. And, again, none of this has been explained by the Argus Leader to the voters of South Dakota. If the Argus Leader wanted to provide substantive information to South Dakota voters, it could describe the acrana of the Senate to the voters. It would elevate the debate. And it would allow voters to understand what Daschle is doing in Washington all the time. Cloture, for example, isn't that complicated. Explaining it in the context of the obstructionist charges against Daschle would be very beneficial to voters. In Ipswich the other night, one man had no idea a minority could prevent a bill from even receiving and up or down vote. The Argus could seriously improve the discussion of the Senate candidates by providing such information.
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