Negotiations 'very fluid' over energy trade in spending bill

By John Siciliano, John Siciliano

Published December 20, 2015

!--StartFragment-->

Senior senators on energy and taxation, across both aisles, said Thursday that they either didn't know, or that negotiations were too fluid to comment, about a potential deal over energy subsidies in an end-of-year rush to pass a government spending bill.

"I don't know," said Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in response to a question on how negotiations were going. A hearing she was conducting on the geopolitics of oil had dominated most of her morning, so she didn't have time to consider a deal that could lift the 40-year-old ban on oil exports, which she favors.

"I've been up here all morning," she said. Many of her fellow Republicans at the hearing voiced their support for lifting the ban, although they did not talk about the negotiations overshadowing everything in Congress this week.