The new measures impose time limits on each stage of the procedure.
Their leverage, they hope, is the deep reduction in the Pentagon budget that the automatic measure would impose.
Bills to change the law were introduced; one measure would have imposed a windfall-profits tax of 3,200 percent on power suppliers.
One measure imposes a $1,000 fine on a company each time it changes a customer's service without his knowledge or consent.
The measure would impose quotas on all exports beyond Russian borders.
He says the measure would impose too many bureaucratic strictures on doctors and patients.
The department appears to be responding to employer complaints that the measure imposes a burden.
In the end, however, the measure imposed more modest restrictions.
The measure was approved Thursday and imposes fines of $75 to $300.
Mobil said the measure had, in effect, imposed a 72 percent tax rate on its South African earnings.