House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday urged fellow Democrats to vote for a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill even though it lifts a 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil.
Pelosi’s letter comes after Senate Democrats and President Obama signaled they support the legislation, which raises spending by $50 billion next year.
The House will vote on the bill Friday morning. With many conservatives likely to oppose the bill, Republicans need House Democrats to pass it.
Pelosi, of California, said she will vote for the bill, and earlier Thursday, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., announced his support.
“Personally, I was dismayed by Republicans’ insistence on lifting the oil export ban in the omnibus,” Pelosi wrote to House Democrats. “However, Republicans’ desperate thirst for lifting the oil export ban empowered Democrats to win significant concessions throughout the omnibus, including ridding the bill of scores of deeply destructive poison pill riders.”
Democrats kept out riders that would have halted the Syrian refugee resettlement, an end to taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood and the rollback of Environmental Protection Agency and Wall Street reform regulations.
The bill also extends dozens of tax cuts, including those for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. Pelosi cited the green energy tax breaks as another reason to vote for the omnibus.
“While lifting the oil export ban remains atrocious policy, the wind and solar tax credits in the omnibus will eliminate around 10 times more carbon pollution than the exports of oil will add,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi on Thursday told reporters she wasn’t sure how many Democrats would vote for the bill, and whether there would be enough support from her party to pass the measure.
