9 November '09
11:38 AM EST
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Policy

Baucus Puts Together A Strange Witness List for Climate Bill Testimony

UPDATE: Congress Matters gets right to the heart of what we were writing about earlier: Sen. Max Baucus is stacking the deck against the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill in order to weaken it. Notably, the American Council on Capital Formation, where witness Margo Thorning works, has received a little over $1.6 million from Exxon Mobil since 1998. Let’s see, just for fun, if natural gas, which Exxon has been pushing recently, in her testimony tomorrow.

ORIGINAL POST: Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, will get his chance to tear into climate change legislation that is, at best, adrift and without a hope of passing in its current form.

Baucus, the only Democrat who voted against the Kerry-Boxer legislation in the Environment and Public Works Committee, has promised deference in at least the allocation of allowances.

He told ClimateWire’s Darren Samuelsohn:

“I don’t want to say we’re going to do something totally different,” he said. “I’m respectful of the House allocation.”

But, if the witness list is any indication, he’s going to look at import taxes to protect American manufacturing and more nuclear. At least two out of the five witnesses , curiously, don’t support climate change legislation at all. Read More »

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5 November '09
8:14 AM EST
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Policy

UPDATE: Boxer Holds Vote Without Republicans, Inhofe Responds

 

UPDATE: Sen. Barbara Boxer held a vote this morning in the Environment and Public Works Committee without any Republicans present and has passed the climate change bill out of committee.

Montana Democrat Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee, voted against the measure leading Republican James Inhofe to declare “that bill is dead.”

ORIGINAL POST: Does the senate have any hope of passing a climate change bill before the Copenhagen talks on Dec. 7?

No. Maybe. We don’t know.

As of right now, the process is a disaster. Republicans, led by Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, have boycotted the markup process in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee because they want a more extensive (and totally unnecessary) five-week EPA review of the bill.

Democratic Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer has threatened to conduct the markup without them.

(The above Tulsa World story has the fascinating and bizarre detail that Inhofe and Boxer were holding hands while talking about their long friendship. What this means we have no idea.) Read More »

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27 October '09
9:34 AM EDT
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Policy

White House on Climate Change Legislation: It’s The Economy, Stupid

BoxerThe Senate Environment and Public Works Committee begins hearings today on the the Kerry-Boxer climate change bill,  the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

You might think that a bill devoted to mitigating the effects of global warming would inspire testimony about climate change.

You would be wrong.

Following the lead of President Obama’s Friday speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a poll showing that Americans care less about global warming than they used to, the whole administration has begun to cleave to the old Clintonian saw in the climate change debate: It’s the economy, stupid.

Let’s look at Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s testimony. Read More »

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26 October '09
8:12 AM EDT
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Policy

Kerry-Boxer Still Shorts Cleantech and Green Energy

The Kerry-Boxer climate change bill is starting to look a lot like the Waxman-Markey bill that passed through the house this spring.

Sen. Barbara Boxer introduced her chairman’s mark late Friday night with a list of the key changes from the house measure. The Environment and Public Works Committee will begin hearings on the measure tomorrow.

The bill also includes a list of the carbon allowances and, like in Waxman-Markey, there’s still not that much going to cleantech and clean energy.

About 10 percent will go to states for energy efficiency and 4 percent will go to energy R & D starting in 2012. Carbon sequestration fares better, garnering 5 percent by 2020, but that’s small potatoes compared to the other allowances, which we list below: Read More »

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6 August '09
8:45 AM EDT
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Policy

ACES… Where Have You Been?

Healthcare, healthcare... but what about climate change...? (The Phoenix Sun)
Healthcare, healthcare… but what about climate change…? (The Phoenix Sun)

Just a short while ago, GER was chronicling the legislative fight in the House, as Rep. Henry Waxman (D- Calif.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, held back-to-back marathon negotiations to secure passage for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES). As reported by GER, the bill passed. An exhausted Rep. Waxman suffered the consequences of this intense battle as he landed in the hospital just a few days later.  But since then, it has all been about healthcare, healthcare, healthcare, leaving little room for negotiations over a climate change bill.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Collin Peterson (D- Minn.) tells Politico’s Lisa Lerer that he’s doubtful a Senate vote on a climate change energy bill will happen anytime soon: “The reality [the health reform bill] is going to happen before cap-and-trade” he says. If that happens, the U.S. would enter the upcoming Copenhagen climate change negotiations without any comprehensive law in the books, weakening the country’s credibility in these vital issues.

What about you? Share your thoughts on the chances for the U.S to have a climate change law by the end of the year. Go to the comments section below.

Senator Barbara Boxer (D- Calif.), Chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and John Kerry (D- Mass.), who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, have vowed to have a bill ready by September 8th, when lawmakers return for their summer recess.  The two senators are not planning to draft a new bill but instead, build on ACES. The outcome could be stronger: CO2 cuts of 20 percent compared to the 17 percent in the House version of the bill. Read More »

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