House Republicans Shift Focus From Primaries to Energy

Republicans in Congress returned Monday from a two-week holiday break, turning their focus from the presidential primaries to consumer-oriented issues such as high gasoline prices, The Washington Post reported.

House Republicans this week will attempt to advance a temporary highway funding bill that also would force mandatory approval of the Keystone XL  pipeline. The pipeline would carry synthetic crude oil from Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the United States.

Sensing President Barack Obama’s vulnerability on domestic energy exploration, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, also plans to center this spring’s congressional session on legislation that would increase fuel supply and lower prices, curb regulations on refineries, and forbid the president from releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the Post reported.

Meanwhile, Democrats plan to force a vote on the “Buffett rule,” in which Americans earning more than $1 million a year would pay income tax at a minimum rate of 30 percent, according to the Post. The legislation is named after billionaire Warren Buffett, who has called for higher taxes on the wealthy.