Boxer Stalls Key Bill by Taking On Oil Firms Over Royalties

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) brought Senate action to a halt this week on a key spending bill with a filibuster over money considered chicken feed by Washington standards--a mere $600,000 in oil royalties owed to California.

The standoff began last week when Boxer put a hold on a $28-billion Interior Department spending bill that would give oil companies a break on the royalties annually paid to state and local governments for pumping on public lands. Boxer compared the provision to cheating taxpayers out of rent, much of which would have gone to support California’s schools.

The stakes may be relatively small but the debate loomed large, with Boxer’s protestations holding up business with the Senate under the gun to pass 13 appropriations bills by Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year.

“It’s not just the $600,000 for California, it’s making sure we don’t condone this kind of thievery,” said Boxer’s press secretary, David Sandretti. “And even so, that money can hire hundreds of teachers, wire thousands of schools [for computers]. You can do a lot of very good work with $600,000.”

A move to end the filibuster--which requires at least 60 votes--failed by just five votes Monday. Ultimately, Boxer’s crusade is expected to end when a few more missing Republican senators return to town, among them Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is on a book tour promoting his run for president.

But the Senate absenteeism enabled Boxer to hold up action on the spending bill for several days, a symbolic victory if not a legislative one. Politically, she stands to lose little and gain lots.

“The public loves a populist battle against big oil,” said Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist. “And she’s not losing a thing because none of the oil companies will ever give her contributions--they can’t stand her.”

The dispute revolves around an Interior Department ruling last year that oil companies had used artificially low prices to calculate royalty payments, costing the Treasury $66 million annually. The department set new regulations to peg the payments to market prices.

Led by lawmakers from major oil producing states, Congress has voted on several occasions to block the new pricing policy--once late at night when many senators were not present, a maneuver that outraged Boxer.

The latest proposed moratorium on the pricing policy is contained in the Interior bill, which would extend the current pricing system through June 2001.

Supporters of the moratorium argue that adjusting the pricing policy amounts to the federal government changing the rules for oil companies in the middle of the game.

“What the senator from California has asked that we do is . . . raise the rent on the apartment in the middle of the month,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), who sponsored the moratorium amendment. Federal officials “are breaking a contract and saying [to oil companies]: ‘We are going to raise your taxes right in the middle of the contract.’ ”

Although filibusters once brought all Senate business to a halt, they now hold up only the bill concerned. Still, they do a fair job of gumming up the works and making a point along the way, as Boxer appears to have done the last few days.

“You can’t go wrong taking on the oil companies,” said Jack Pitney, a former strategist for the Republican National Committee. “She gets attention for the cause and she may deter future special interest provisions for the oil industry. People will think twice about undergoing another filibuster they might lose.”

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Times staff writer Robert A. Rosenblatt contributed to this story.