Measures include oil drilling, Vietnam trade.

Nearing the end of an era of Republican rule yesterday, the House approved energy, tax and trade legislation as it prepares to hand over the reins of power to Democrats.

In a final burst of activity, representatives approved $38 billion in tax breaks and a Vietnam trade agreement and voted to open a large section of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

The Senate was expected to take up the measures late last night or Saturday. But GOP leaders’ hopes of leaving town with a few more legislative victories could be spoiled, not by Democrats but fellow Republicans.

Some Senate Republicans object to costly provisions of the tax bill, from a tax break for songwriters to funding for health benefits for former coal miners, saying they show the party has yet to learn the lessons of the election that ousted the GOP from power.

“The American people took the reins of government away from the Republican Party because they were tired of our hypocrisy as a party on the issue of fiscal discipline,” protested Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.

The final hours of the lame-duck session were overshadowed by the release of an investigative report on the congressional page scandal – perhaps fitting, given that the 109th Congress will be remembered for its political scandals.

The day was marked by partisan bickering. Democrats complained that Republicans were rushing through big and complex bills without giving lawmakers time to read them.

Later, however, retiring Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, received a hug on the House floor from the incoming speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi of California.

In a speech on the House floor, Hastert looked back on the GOP legacy and wished his Democratic successor well. Pelosi saluted the longest-serving Republican speaker and then joked, “long may that record stand.”

The tax bill passed the House, 367-45. It included a provision that would open about 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to energy exploration, an area thought to contain more than 1.2 billion barrels of oil and 5.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Rep. Lois Capps, a California Democrat who opposed the drilling provision, warned that it would “bring the 25-year-old bipartisan moratorium against new drilling off America’s coasts one step closer to an end.”

Lawmakers worked several health-care measures into the tax bill, including legislation to cancel a scheduled 5 percent cut in payments to doctors who treat elderly Medicare recipients, and changes that would allow individuals to put more money into tax-sheltered health savings accounts, which are a new type of medical insurance favored by many Republicans.

But Democrats said health care for children was shortchanged because Republicans failed to cover a funding shortfall expected next year in a popular federal-state health insurance program for kids.

The trade bill, which included a Bush-backed provision establishing normal trade relations with Vietnam, passed the House, 212-184. But the bill also drew objections from Republican senators from Southern textile states because of a provision that would allow Haiti to export more apparel to the United States.

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