Here’s another article from the archives.
Climate bill stuck in neutral
Published: August 5, 2009
Updated 1 year ago
A much anticipated climate bill which would create a “cap and trade” system for carbon emissions sought after by Senate Democrats may be in danger.
Congressmen that formerly backed this bill are now expressing doubts about the feasibility of the project.
Lisa Lerer from Politico explains, “Democrats from the Midwest and the South are resistant to a cap-and-trade proposal. And few if any Republicans are jumping in to help push a global warming and energy initiative.”
Consequently, many Democrats predict that any developments in the climate bill will be delayed until next year.
“The reality is [the health reform bill] is going to happen before cap and trade,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Collin Peterson, “Who knows if it will ever come out of the Senate?”
Pork Transformation sees the execution of the climate bill through the Senate being threatened by the continued efforts of many congressmen to make health care the top priority.
The problem with prioritizing health care and delaying talks about climate control is that without any new legislation concerning climate control the US will have less sway in December during the international climate negotiations convention in Copenhagen.
If the US does not take the necessary steps to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions, it will severely hamper its ability to convince developing nations like India and China to decrease their gas emissions.
Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, West Virginia Democratic Senator John Rockefeller, however, says he has faith in Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) direction.
“Everything is hard, everything is slow,” Rockefeller said “My answer to that is let’s do what we always did with [former Senate Majority Leader] George Mitchell and stay until Dec. 22. We did that every year he was majority leader.”
Still, other Senators, like Democrat Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, a senior member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, are reluctant to see the climate bill passing any time this year.
“It’s very hard for the United States Congress to wrap itself around one very large, significant, very controversial issue, and we’re being asked to do that in the midst of a very deep recession,” Dorgan explained.
Another force that has hampered the progress of the climate bill is extensive lobbying from coal producers and power plants to delay voting on the climate bill. Scandal arose when the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity reported “it indirectly hired a lobbying firm that sent fake letters to lawmakers purporting to be from nonprofit groups opposed to climate-change legislation”. They are now considering taking legal action.
The lobbying firm Bonner & Associates has come forward and admitted to sending the fake letters as well as firing the person responsible for sending them.
The fake letters, supposedly from non-profits reached at least three Congressmen including Rep. Tom Perriello, of Virginia. Perriello’s letter read, “We support making the environment cleaner, but the reason we are writing is that we are concerned about our electric bills. Many of our members are on tight budgets, and the sizes of their monthly utility bills are important expense items.”
