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House wraps up ‘100-hour’ agenda

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of California, center, and fellow Democratic House members applaud their work during the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress in Washington on Thursday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Nicole Gaouette and Richard Simon Los Angeles Times
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of California, center, and fellow Democratic House members applaud their work during the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress in Washington on Thursday. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

WASHINGTON – As the House’s new Democratic majority celebrated the completion of its populist 100-hour agenda Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., unveiled the party’s next legislative target: an ambitious plan to wean the U.S. from foreign oil and slow global warming.

Pelosi announced that she intends to create a panel to help craft the party’s environmental agenda and has asked committee chairmen with jurisdiction over the issue to pass legislation “to truly declare our energy independence” by July 4.

The announcement came as Democrats completed their 100-hour agenda with passage of a bill that would impose a “conservation fee” on oil and gas taken from deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico; scrap nearly $6 billion worth of oil industry tax breaks enacted by Congress in recent years; and seek to recoup royalties lost to the government because of an Interior Department error in leases issued in the late 1990s.

Reps. Bill Sali, R-Idaho, and Cathy McMorris, R-Wash., voted against the bill.

The legislation was the last of six bills the Democrats have plowed through the House in two weeks, including measures to increase the minimum wage, expand stem-cell research, implement Sept. 11 commission recommendations, authorize Medicare negotiations for lower drug prices and cut interest rates on student loans.

Yet even as Democratic leaders and freshmen clustered around Pelosi at a news conference to tout their accomplishment, rumbles from the slower-moving Senate signaled that the bills will face resistance there.

Pelosi’s plan to create the energy panel also raised hackles among House Democrats who chair committees with jurisdiction on the matter, especially Rep. John D. Dingell, a lawmaker from Michigan who looks out for the interests of the Detroit automakers.

And, although House Democrats backed the 100-hour agenda almost unanimously, cracks in the caucus might appear as Democrats turn to energy, health care and immigration, among other issues.

The office of House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., calculated that the agenda passed in 42 hours, 13 minutes and 28 seconds of legislative time.

“In the November election, the American people signaled their wish for change, a wish for our country to go in a new direction,” Pelosi said. “Democrats promised that we would, and these past two weeks we have delivered on the promise.”

The bill to repeal oil industry tax breaks was approved by a 264-163 vote, but that and the other 100-hour measures are still far from becoming law.

President Bush has threatened to veto the stem-cell legislation, which would expand funding for research using embryonic stem cells and the Medicare legislation. And though Democrats also control the Senate, by a 51-49 majority, Republicans can use the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to overcome, to kill House-passed bills.