US House to vote on Senate version of OCS access bill on Tuesday

Washington (Platts)--1Dec2006

The US House will vote Tuesday on a Senate bill that would open more than
8 million acres of the Outer Continental Shelf in the Gulf of Mexico to energy
development, congressional sources said Friday.

"After months of pressing House leadership to bring this important bill
to the floor...leadership today agreed to bring this legislation up for a vote
next week," Representative Bobby Jindal, a Louisiana Republican, said.

House approval of the measure, however, may be difficult given that the
Senate bill will come to the floor under a suspension of rules, meaning that
two-thirds of the chamber will need to vote in favor for it to pass.

And opponents of the legislation have vowed to try to sidetrack the bill
if leadership follows through with a back-up plan to bring it up under regular
rules, which would allow the bill to pass with a simple majority.

The Senate bill is considerably less ambitious than a bill approved
earlier this year by the House that would have opened the entire OCS 100 miles
or more from the US coast to energy development. The measure also would have
allowed states to determine whether they would permit drilling within the
100-mile limit.

Chris Tucker, a spokesman for John Peterson, Republican-Pennsylvania, a
strong supporter of expanding oil and gas industry access to the OCS, Friday
admitted that winning the support of two-thirds of the House will likely be
difficult. He added, however, that if that vote fails, there would still be
enough time in the lame-duck session to bring the bill up under normal
procedures for a simple majority vote.

Israel Klein, a spokesman for Representative Edward Markey,
Democrat-Massachusetts, however, said bill proponents have a "tough row to
hoe," adding that some House member may attempt to amend the bill on the
floor, adding to the likelihood that it will be defeated.

--Daniel Whitten, daniel_whitten@platts.com

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