RESUME BUILDING:

White House Tries to Break Energy Talks Deadlock (Fox News, November 04, 2003)

Vice President Dick Cheney, trying to break a deadlock over energy legislation, circulated a compromise on energy taxes Tuesday and got favorable reaction from Republican congressional leaders, sources close to the discussions said.

The compromise, details of which were not disclosed, appeared to give fresh momentum to energy negotiations that have been stalled for more than two weeks over disagreements between House and Senate Republicans over ethanol taxes.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. gave an optimistic assessment and said the dispute over the energy tax issues could be resolved "within the next 24 hours or so."

"We're making real progress," Frist told reporters.

The dispute has centered over disagreements between Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., over whether to change how gasoline taxes are collected to ensure no reduction in the highway trust fund if ethanol use is significantly expanded.

Social Security privatization is undoable by a Republican president unless the GOP has 60 Senate seats--but, other than that, all Mr. Bush would have left to add is the prescription drug bill and he'd have achieved just about everything he campaigned on.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 4, 2003 9:18 PM