Climate change bill faces US Senate test

Times of India , Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Correspondent : AFP
WASHINGTON: A key US Senate committee forges ahead Tuesday with sweeping climate change legislation, as its backers nervously watch time run short before December's make-or-break global summit in Denmark.

President Barack Obama's Democratic allies have split on the issue, with some worried about the possible impact on home-state industries, while his Republican foes have mostly united against the White House-backed approach.

With uncertainty clouding the legislation's fate, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will open its critical debate on the plan at 9:00 am (1400 GMT) after last-ditch efforts to avert a threatened Republican boycott.

Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the committee, said late Monday she was holding out an olive branch to Republican colleagues who say they are unsatisfied with the Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the bill.

"We really hope they will return to the table," said Boxer, who added she might take steps to move forward with or without Republicans but underlined that "we're going to be very, very patient."

Boxer said she would invite EPA officials to appear and take any questions after the agency based its assessment on largely similar legislation that cleared the House of Representatives in June.

The US House bill calls for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and by 83 percent by 2050. The Senate's slightly more ambitious bill calls for a 20-percent cut by 2020.

Both bills would create a cap-and-trade regime, the government would set the total level of domestic emissions allowable and then allocate quotas to companies.

Firms that emit less than their quota would be allowed to sell their surplus allocation to others that exceed theirs. Those in excess could also face fines.

The Senate text -- which is likely to change considerably before a final vote -- also makes a push for nuclear energy research and training, and promotes natural gas as a clean energy source.

Democratic Senator John Kerry, a co-author of the bill, has warned that US leadership is on the line ahead of the global climate change talks in Denmark's capital Copenhagen next month.

The December 7-18 summit is aimed at a treaty that will tackle carbon emissions and their impacts, and encourage a switch to cleaner energy after 2012, when the current Kyoto Protocol pledges expire.

Kerry and other champions of robust US action to curb greenhouse gases blamed for global warming have openly said the full Senate will not vote on a final bill before the summit.

In a bid to woo swing-vote Republicans, Kerry has partnered with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who has proposed tying the climate change measure to legislation expanding the use of nuclear plants to generate energy.

"I want a nuclear power title that will create a nuclear renaissance. Nuclear power is the answer to climate change," Graham said recently.

But skepticism from swing-vote Democrats may make it difficult, if not impossible, for Obama's allies to rally the 60 votes needed to ensure that they can break through any parliamentary delaying tactics and approve the bill.

"I think at the end of the day, the people who turn the switch on at home will be disadvantaged," one such Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, told CNBC television on Friday.

Nelson's comments came after the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said the House version of the bill would likely cost US families 175 dollars per year, while the EPA has set the price tag at about 80-111 dollars per year.

Groups that represent industries likely to be adversely affected have placed the cost much higher, while the Republicans on Boxer's committee have vowed to shun Tuesday's session because they lack a comprehensive EPA cost assessement.

"The taxpayers expect us to know what this 1,000-page bill costs before we start voting on it. They will only know this if we have a full economic analysis," said Senator James Inhofe, the panel's top Republican.

 
SOURCE : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/developmental-issues/Climate-change-bill-faces-US-Senate-test-/articleshow/5192707.cms
 


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