COLLINS WORKS WITH COLLEAGUES TO SUCCESSFULLY BLOCK ENERGY BILL

WASHINGTON, DC -- Senator Susan Collins has been successful in her efforts to block the Energy Policy bill, which she calls, "unacceptable." A majority of Senators have voted against ending debate on the legislation, which essentially blocks the legislation by preventing it from moving forward in the Senate. Senator Collins has strongly opposed the bill and was among the first Senators to announce that she would oppose the bill and support efforts to block it.

"I am encouraged that the majority of my colleagues in the Senate agree that this energy bill is bad policy and fiscally irresponsible. It is my hope that negotiators will go back to the table and come up with a bill that will accomplish our goals of increasing supply, decreasing demand, reducing our alliance on foreign oil and protecting our environment," said Senator Collins following today's vote.

Senator Collins has been an outspoken opponent of the energy bill, arguing that it would do nothing to help reduce electricity rates in Maine, which are among the highest in the nation. She has also been critical of a number of costly "pork" provisions in the bill that include $95 million to ConAgra, a private company, to turn scraps from a Butterball Turkey plant in Missouri into fuel and a $2 billion tax break to producers of ethanol, which would also increase gasoline prices in the Northeast. In addition, she opposed a provision in the bill that provides a liability waiver to the manufacturers of MTBE, which has contaminated groundwater and a number of wells in Maine.

She has also expressed disappointment that the final version of the bill did not include some key environmental provisions that she supported in the Senate version of the legislation. That bill included a provision authored by Senator Collins and New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, that would have required 10 percent of our electricity to come from clean, renewable energy sources by the year 2020.

"This bill is an unbalanced approach to energy policy. It is good news for Maine that it has been stopped in the Senate."