http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/11/america/Democrats-Fact-Check.phpWASHINGTON: Hillary Rodham Clinton has challenged rival Barack Obama on his record on energy policy, prompting Obama's campaign to counter that it was Clinton who voted against improvements in automobile fuel economy and promoting renewable fuels.
THE SPIN: "On the campaign trail, Senator Obama talks about clean energy. But in the Senate he voted for Dick Cheney's energy bill loaded with new tax breaks for oil companies. When he faced a tough choice, his support for a clean energy future turned out to be just words," said Clinton at a rally in Harrisburg, Pa.
Obama's campaign said Clinton "voted against renewable fuels and higher CAFE (auto fuel economy) standards until she started running for president" and that the bill Obama voted for "actually raised taxes on oil companies and made the largest investment in renewable energy in our nation's history."
THE FACTS:Both sides refer to votes on an energy bill Congress passed in 2005. In the Senate, Clinton voted against the bill and Obama voted for it.
It is a stretch to call it "Dick Cheney's energy bill," a hot-button reference for many Democrats. Although the House bill was framed according to the vice president's energy priorities, by the time it passed the Senate many of those measures, such as drilling in an Arctic wildlife refuge, had been stripped away. Its broad new benefits for nuclear power and the coal industry mirrored Cheney's priorities, however.
Although opposed by environmentalists, many Democrats viewed the final bill as the best compromise that could be achieved in a GOP-controlled Congress. Clinton at the time said she opposed the bill because it did not do enough to cut reliance on foreign oil and address global warming.
Clinton's claim that the bill "was loaded with new tax breaks for oil companies" also overstates the case. While it included $2.6 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas industries, that was offset by nearly $3 billion in oil taxes, mostly in an extension of the oil spill liability tax. The bill's $14.3 billion in energy tax breaks mostly went for renewable energy and efficiency programs and the nuclear and coal industries, both of which are prominent in Obama's home state of Illinois.Obama is correct when he says Clinton voted against renewable fuels and auto fuel economy. During the 2005 energy deliberations, Clinton voted against an amendment that would have required an increase in the federal auto fuel economy standard, known as CAFE; Obama voted for it. The measure failed, 28-67.
Clinton opposed the energy legislation's mandate for more ethanol use as a gasoline additive But on that, she was not alone as Northeast and West Coast senators worried the ethanol requirement would lead to higher gasoline costs outside the Farm Belt. Democratic Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts, both now Obama supporters, and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., also voted against the energy legislation as did California's two Democratic senators.
In late 2007, as they geared up to begin running for president, both Clinton and Obama voted for boosting auto fuel economy by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon, and for a huge expansion of ethanol use as part of the energy bill passed by Congress. President Bush signed the bill into law last December.
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