Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Mark Dayton today denounced Senate passage of the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006, which would allow oil drilling off the Gulf Coast. Senators were prohibited from offering amendments to the bill, including a Dayton measure that would increase the availability of renewable fuels at gas stations nationwide. Dayton voted against the Republican legislation, which passed by a vote of 71 to 25, decrying it as a giveaway to the oil and natural gas industries that will do nothing to alleviate consumers’ pain at the pump today.

“If the Senate were going to take up the Republican energy package or a Democratic energy package or, best of all, an American energy package, this would seem to be our chance to do so,” said Dayton. “Instead, we get a special interest boondoggle, and we are not even allowed to offer amendments that could make it the comprehensive energy bill that the Republican Leader promised us.”

In May, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist promised to bring comprehensive energy legislation—including provisions on alternative energy and gas price-gouging—to the Senate floor for a vote “in the coming days.” Yet, today’s offshore drilling proposal remains the only energy legislation on the Senate’s Republican-controlled agenda.

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, gas prices this week soared to an astonishing $2.98 per gallon.

Dayton said today’s legislation would, at best, provide a relatively small additional supply of oil and natural gas, for which consumers will likely pay even higher prices than they pay today. Further, these supplies would not be available until several years from now.

“We cannot produce our way to energy self-sufficiency when consumers have no alternatives to those traditional energy sources,” said Dayton. “And this bill does nothing to provide Americans with any of those energy alternatives, not today, not tomorrow, not ten years from now.”

Additionally, Dayton opposed today’s bill because it unfairly benefits four states—Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, and Mississippi—which would receive an unprecedented 37.5 percent of the profits resulting from the oil and gas drilling allowed in the bill. He warned that such a measure could set a dangerous precedent for other states to demand exclusive rights to national, natural resources.

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