Senate Showdown On Gas Decontrol Is Set Next Week: Senate to Take Up Gas Bill Monday
The Senate yesterday agreed to begin debate on the controversial natural gas price decontrol bill on Monday, with a key vote to recommit the bill to conference likely sometime later in the week.</br></br>Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) could not persuade opponents of the legislation to accept a fixed time for a vote, so there is still a possibility of a filibuster or other parliamentary delaying tactics.</br></br>President Carter is leading an all-out administration effort to win passage of the gas bill, which Carter has called a crucial test of the nation's will.</br></br>The legislation is opposed by an unusual coalition of liberal Democrats who oppose price decontrol. Republicans who oppose CarterÛªs general policies and oil-state conservatives who regard the complex gas bill as worse for the gas industry than no bill at all.</br></br>Proponents were encouraged by an endorsement of the bill by Sen. Edmund S. Muskie (D-Mainc), the influential chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who had opposed total deregulation of newly-discovered natural gas prices the last time the Senate voted on the issue.