For those keeping score, here's how Congress voted on the egregious conference committee energy bill:
The House approved it 275 to 156.
The Senate approved it by a big 74 to 26 vote.
This vote was driven more by pork than by partisanship, as the lopsided numbers indicate.
Fun facts:
-More Senate Democrats voted for this bill than voted against it. Dems split 25-20 in favor, usually driven by nice fat subsidies to their favorite home-state industry. In West Virginia, home of Rockefeller and Byrd, that meant subsidies for clean coal technology. In half a dozen other states, generous new ethanol subsidies were the story. In Illinois, Dick Durbin and Barack Obama were presumably swayed by both of these angles. In Michigan, the story has to be the absence of any action to change fuel efficiency standards.
-Six Senate Republicans voted against the bill. Here's the list:
Chafee (R-RI)
Gregg (R-NH)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCain (R-AZ)
Sununu (R-NH)
-Out of 32 Texans in Congress, just two voted against the bill: Lloyd Doggett and Ron Paul.
-The only states in which House members rejected the bill unanimously: Delaware (0 for 1), Massachusetts (0 for 10), Maine (0 for 2), Rhode Island (0 for 2), Vermont (0 for 1).