The US House of Representatives, by a two-vote margin, is sending the Senate legislation to encourage oil companies to open new refineries.
Approval came on Friday only after leaders of the Republican majority extended the vote by 40 minutes to buttonhole colleagues, prompting calls of "Shame, Shame" from Democrats.
The bill, passed 212-210, would streamline government permits for refineries and open federal lands including closed military bases for future refinery construction.
The bill would also limit the number of gasoline blends refiners must produce, eliminating many blends now designed to reduce air pollution.
But Democrats, joined by some GOP moderates, called the bill a sop to rich oil companies that would do nothing to ease energy costs that include heating bills expected to soar this winter.
US President George W. Bush welcomed the outcome.
"I commend the House for passing legislation that would increase our refining capacity and help address the cost of gasoline, diesel fuels and jet fuels," he said in a statement.
It looked as if the bill was headed to defeat, two votes shy of approval. Democrats called in vain for gaveling the vote closed as Republican leaders lobbied their members to switch votes and support the bill.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, "worked me over a little," said Representative Bill Young, a Florida Republican, among the last group of lawmakers to switch to support the legislation.
Representative Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, who recently stepped down temporarily as majority leader after being indicted in Texas over a campaign finance issue, was as active as ever, putting pressure on wavering lawmakers in the crowded, noisy House chamber.
Finally, long after the vote had been scheduled to close, two Republican members switched, providing the victory. A tie would have killed the bill.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)