Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) is not likely to allow votes on amendments to Lease Sale 181 legislation during debate on the measure this week, according to some Capitol Hill aides.

“I think that’s their [Republicans’] preference,” said Christopher Miller, senior policy advisor on energy and environment for Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Efforts to confirm this report with Frist’s office and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and sponsor of the bill (S. 3711), were unsuccessful late Tuesday.

The Senate is scheduled to hold a cloture vote early Wednesday on whether to proceed with debate on S. 3711, which would open up more than eight million acres for oil and natural gas leasing in the Lease 181 area in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and in a tract south of Lease 181. It also would establish a 125-mile, no drill buffer zone to protect Florida from drilling until 2022, and would give Gulf coastal states a bigger slice of federal royalties from offshore drilling in the Gulf.

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