Republicans Drop a Tax Plan After Businesses Protest
By Carl Hulse
The New York Times

Tuesday 02 May 2006

Washington - Senate Republicans on Monday hurriedly abandoned a broad tax proposal opposed by the oil industry and business leaders, another sign of their struggle to come up with an acceptable political and legislative answer to high gasoline prices.

Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said he had decided to jettison the provision, which would have generated billions of dollars by changing the way businesses treat inventories for tax purposes. Instead, he said the Senate Finance Committee would hold hearings on the plan "later this year, so the pluses and minuses of the provision can become well known."

Cantwell, Feinstein Press for Public Release of Enron Evidence,
Citing Implications for Oil Markets
t r u t h o u t | Press Release

Tuesday 02 May 2006

Ex-Enron traders still exploiting loopholes to pull in millions; release of sealed evidence could help expose trading strategies.

Washington, DC - US Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) today called on federal energy regulators and the Department of Justice to ensure the timely public release of evidence acquired during the government's ongoing Enron investigation.

The senators, both members of the Senate Energy Committee, submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the evidence as part of their effort to prevent future market manipulation schemes in energy trading, including highly volatile oil and gasoline markets. In the absence of much needed consumer protections, former Enron traders-who played a central role in artificially inflating electricity rates throughout the West prior to Enron's collapse-continue to make millions in unregulated energy markets at the expense of American consumers.

3 Democrats slam president over defying statutes
Say he cannot claim powers above the law

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | May 2, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Three leading Democratic senators blasted President Bush yesterday for having claimed he has the authority to defy more than 750 statutes enacted since he took office, saying that the president's legal theories are wrong and that he must obey the law.

''We're a government of laws, not men," Senate minority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, said in a statement. ''It is not for George W. Bush to disregard the Constitution and decide that he is above the law."

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, accused Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney of attempting to concentrate ever more government power in their own hands.

''The Bush-Cheney administration has cultivated an insidious brand of unilateralism that regularly crosses into an arrogance of power," Leahy said in a statement. ''The scope of the administration's assertions of power is stunning, and it is chilling."

But, Leahy said, because Bush's fellow Republicans control Congress, Democrats have no power to call hearings on Bush's attempt to ''pick and choose which laws he deems appropriate to follow."

''Just as disturbing as the president's use of press releases to announce which laws he will follow is the abject failure of the Republican-controlled Congress to act as a check against this executive power grab," Leahy said. ''Until Republican leaders let Congress fulfill its oversight role, this White House will have no incentive to stop this abuse of power."