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While this week’s news has focused on President Obama’s $3 trillion deficit reduction proposal, the Supercommittee is moving forward with defining the details of an agreement to save at least $1.2 trillion over ten years, though potentially even more depending on whose cuts are accepted, due by November 23, 2011. Garten Rothkopf spoke to an array of senior sources on Capitol Hill, including Supercommittee staff, and found that while both sides are aggressively targeting energy spending, with very different agendas, early agreement is emerging on biofuels tax credits, nuclear subsidies, and the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for renewable power. Today’s GR Energy and Climate Brief previews the details surrounding likely targets for spending cuts by the Congressional Supercommittee.
Sources:Office of Management and Budget. Laura Stanton and Tobey/The Washington Post.
Staff Discussions Aimed at Finding Areas of Consensus: Though publicly the Supercommittee has held just one meeting and made only broad statements regarding the potential cuts supported by its members, the staff has been meeting behind the scenes frequently to determine the parameters of an agreement. They are attempting to reach agreement on the top-line numbers for programs that will be targeted for cutting, before getting to the specifics. As part of this process, which included two meetings last week, Committee staffers have circulated white papers on potential cuts, which GR has reviewed. Republicans are targeting a variety of energy programs for deep cuts to reduce the size of the defense cuts (Senator Kyl has threatened to resign from the Supercommittee if it recommended greater defense cuts), while Democrats have drawn a line in the sand on cuts to transportation and renewable energy R&D, and are going after oil and gas subsidies.
See full article here.
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