Bargainers near agreement on spending, tax cut deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — White House and congressional negotiators moved toward clinching a tax and spending compromise that would cap Congress’ year by extending numerous tax credits and financing government agencies in 2016. Eleventh-hour differences remained over Republican efforts to lift a ban on U.S. oil exports.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday morning that the deal would be released later in the day and come to a vote on Thursday. That would require passage of another short-term spending bill since government funding expires Wednesday at midnight.

“I’m not going to predict how the vote count is going to go down. Look, in negotiations like this you win some, you lose some. Democrats won some, they lost some. We won some, we lost some,” Ryan, R-Wis., said at a breakfast hosted by Politico. “At the end of the day we’re going to get this done.”

But on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Democrats would not relent on demands that in exchange for allowing American crude oil exports for the first time in four decades, his party wanted provisions aimed at encouraging alternative energy development and protecting Obama administration efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“If Republicans think reducing our carbon emissions and encouraging use of alternative energy is an unacceptable price to pay, we can move the rest of the package” without lifting the oil export ban, Reid said. He added, “It’s decision time.”

Appearing with Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., avoided offering details but spoke of the benefits of a long-term deal to extend dozens of tax breaks sought by lawmakers on both sides. McConnell said such a deal would make a larger tax reform package easier to achieve next year, while satisfying business goals, including extending a research and development tax credit and a popular deduction for equipment purchases.

“Making those permanent is, I think, an important shot in the arm to our economy,” McConnell said.

A major priority for the GOP and some Democrats was lifting the 40-year-old bar against exporting U.S. crude oil, a remnant of the 1970s oil shortages that industry supporters consider unneeded with today’s explosion of domestic oil extraction. Critics say ending the prohibition would be a windfall to big oil companies that would damage the environment by encouraging more drilling.

In exchange, Democrats were seeking concessions including renewing tax breaks for solar and wind energy producers for five years and reviving an environmental conservation fund. Democrats also wanted to block GOP efforts to roll back Obama administration environmental regulations, including one setting new emission standards for power generating plants.

Negotiators had sorted through remaining disputes over environment, labor and other provisions in a $1.1 trillion bill financing federal agencies for 2016.