The $13 billion, 10-year energy tax package is expected to face a number of challenges this week from Republican senators seeking to strip it from the troubled corporate tax cut bill (S. 1637). Few, however, were willing to speculate Monday on whether the energy tax provisions would survive to remain part of the larger tax legislation.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has filed an amendment to strike the energy tax incentives and subsidies from the corporate tax bill, and Sen. John McCain ( R-AZ) has reserved the right to offer 20 relevant amendments to the measure, most of which were said to be aimed at wiping out the energy tax provisions.

The Senate resumed debate Monday on the wider corporate tax measure, also known as the Jumpstart Our Business Strength (JOBS) Act. Voting on the more than 80 amendments to the bill was expected to begin Tuesday. Given the large number of amendments, it was not known when the votes on the energy tax package would take place.

Bill Wicker, a Democratic spokesman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, thinks the energy tax package may survive the GOP challenges. “The energy tax package is a pretty popular piece of legislation” among both Democrats and Republicans, he told NGI.

He has serious reservations, however, about whether the troubled corporate tax bill will make it through the Senate. The measure was successfully filibustered twice in April.

On April 8, Senate Republican and Democratic leaders reached a consent deal to piggyback the $13 billion energy tax package to the corporate tax cut bill (see Daily GPI, April 13). The GOP strategy at the time envisioned attaching the policy portion of the Senate energy bill (S. 2095) to a separate piece of legislation. The policy portion included all aspects of the Senate energy bill, except the tax package.

The Senate, however, defeated last week a GOP bid to attach the 900-plus page policy part of the energy measure to an unrelated bill banning Internet access taxes (S. 150). That was the latest and perhaps the biggest setback in what has been a string of setbacks for the energy bill in the Senate this year (see Daily GPI, April 30).

A defeat on the energy tax package could very well take the wind out of the entire energy bill this year, some have predicted. The tax package offers incentives for the development of an Alaska natural gas pipeline, including a controversial floor price for natural gas produced in Alaska and transported over the proposed line; a new credit for oil and gas production from marginal wells; accelerated depreciation for gas gathering lines; and expensing of geological and geophysical costs, as well as a number of other initiatives.

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