Landslide Victory For Gary Peters' Advanced Vehicle Technology Act of 2009

Yesterday Gary Peters' (D-MI) Advanced Vehicle Technology Act of 2009, HR 3246, passed the House with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, 312-114. Only one Democrat, conservative oil millionaire Harry Teague of New Mexico joined the GOP leadership in opposing. The call for mindless obstructionism from John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence fell on deaf ears when it came to 35% of the Republican House Caucus. 62 of their members crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats. The hard-core sociopaths and teabaggers like Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Joe Wilson (R-SC), Mean Jean Schmidt (R-OH), Steve King (R-IA), Paul Ryan (R-WI), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), David Dreier (R-CA), Pete Sessions (R-TX), Paul Broun (R-GA), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), Tom McClintock (R-CA) Lord Boustany (R-LA), and Dan Lungren (R-CA) all stuck to their knee jerk obstructionist stance.

Although they did vote for the bill in the end, several of the most reactionary of the Blue Dogs and their fellow travelers joined with the Republicans to try to kill the bill with a motion to recommit, habitual aisle-jumpers like Bobby Bright (Blue Dog-AL), Parker Griffith (Blue Dog-AL), Gene Taylor (Blue Dog-MS), Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS), Walt Minnick (Blue Dog-ID), and Frank Kratovil (Blue Dog-MD).

Before the final bill passed Eric Massa (D-NY) introduced an amendment that sets the framework for the Department of Energy to work with the private sector to accomplish the goals of the bill. It passed by one of the biggest landslides of the year, 416-14, every single Democrat plus all but 14 die-hard teabagger Republican nihilists voting "aye." When Boehner can't even hold Bachmann, Foxx and Mean Jean you know he's in trouble. Needless to say the House's worst job killing member, slippery Wisconsin extremist Paul Ryan, stuck with Boehner and Steve King. Massa, needless to say was delighted. "During this recession," he explained afterwards, "we cannot allow energy independence and American innovation to sit on the backburner and that's why I presented this amendment. I'm proud to have had the support of 415 other members of congress and such an overwhelmingly positive response speaks to the bipartisan nature of strengthening our domestic auto industry... The future of the American auto industry and thousands of American jobs rest on the ability of domestic car companies to research, develop, and commercialize new, clean, efficient technologies that will be the backbone of a new US vehicle market... Beyond support for research and development, we must follow through completely on our obligations to the American people to develop real solutions to our growing energy crisis. We cannot be satisfied with abandoning new technologies every time they leave the lab. We must help our automakers carry these technologies across the finish line or face the alternative that we have seen time and again where US research is picked up and developed by foreign competitors or loses commercial traction and never sees the light of day."

Here's Rep. Peters on the floor yesterday explaining why this bill had to be passed: