While exercising due caution that this is not Democrat propaganda, it certainly seems on the face of things that the Senate Republican caucus has shown itself to be protecting BP, Transocean, and Halliburton by opposing a Democrat request that the Senate pass without dissent a bill granting the presidential commission looking into the oil spill subpoena powers.
The grant of subpoena powers will probably be passed in the long run, but the Republicans could have sped up the process instead of appearing to obstruct it.
As far as I can see, any commission requires subpoena powers to do its job. The request would seem innocuous to me. The Republicans’ refusal to go along with easy agreement to such a request is bad optics, as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks to Su.