The Senate has dropped an effort to penalize the oil giant Chevron for maintaining extensive ties to the military junta in Burma. This week, the Senate approved new trade sanctions against Burma but excluded a provision that would have eliminated a large Chevron tax break. Burmese activists had supported the provision to pressure Chevron to end its ties with the junta. Nyunt Than of the Burmese American Democratic Alliance said, “Unless Chevron is out of there, the United States doesn’t have the moral authority to tell other countries to get out.” California Senator Dianne Feinstein was among those opposing penalizing Chevron, because she says other companies would take its place anyway. The measure had been named after the late Tom Lantos, a Burma advocate and the only US lawmaker to have survived the Nazi Holocaust.