Senate panel approves Democratic climate bill

WASHINGTON--A key U.S. Senate environment committee approved a Democratic climate change bill on Thursday that would require industry to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

The bill approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee will now become one of several initiatives in the Senate aimed at attacking global warming. But they are unlikely to produce legislation that would be voted on by the full Senate until next year at the earliest.

With Republicans boycotting the environment panel's measure, saying more analysis of the legislation was needed, 10 Democrats approved the bill and one Democrat, Sen. Max Baucus, voted against it.

Sen. John Kerry, who co-authored the bill with fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer, is leading an effort with some Republicans and the White House to draft a compromise.

Democrats in Congress, working on a major plank of President Barack Obama's agenda, have been anxious to show at least some progress on enacting a domestic climate change bill before December 7, when an international global warming summit convenes in Copenhagen.

While there were scores of amendments to the bill that environment committee members wanted to debate and vote on before approving it, they were unable to because of the Republican boycott.

Under committee rules, at least two Republicans had to be present to debate and vote on changing the bill.

Boxer delayed work on the legislation for two days, saying she was giving Republicans the opportunity to collect more information from EPA officials and to offer their own amendments.

But Republicans did not take her up on the offer and by Thursday, Boxer had lost patience with the delay.

She opened Thursday's work session reading from a letter from John Rowe, Chief Executive of Exelon, one of the country's largest utilities.

Calling the bill written by Boxer and Kerry "an excellent starting point," Rowe wrote, "We urge you as chairman, as well as your colleagues, to take the steps necessary to order the bill reported by the committee so that climate legislation can be considered by the full Senate."

Baucus' vote against the bill reflected the difficulties ahead in crafting a measure that would attract the 60 votes needed for passage by the Senate.

As an influential moderate Democrat, Baucus laid out changes he would seek, including a weaker carbon-reduction target. Other Midwestern and Southern senators from states heavily reliant on coal will seek their own changes, which could upset liberals now supporting the bill.

Story Copyright (c) 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

[kewell82]

Man-made global warming is the biggest falsehood ever conceived. It is just a way for Democrats or any other politician who think man-made global warming is true to give us a huge tax increase. If the cap and trade (cap and tax) legislation ever passes, it will double, triple everyones electric bills if your power supply comes from coal power plants. It doesn't just stop there; anything that creates carbon dioxide will be taxed (cars, planes, industrial plants, animals, etc....). We all need to stand against this bill because it is completely bogus. Where are all the hurricanes this was going to create, the droughts, the rising oceans. The climate is always going up and down sense the beginning of mankind. Historically it has always been that way and it is the same today. We just have better technology to measure it and real scientists have proof that the earth has actually been cooling. So to all you Al Gore fanatics, go and do your research without being paid to say that man is creating global warming. As for Al Gore enjoy your millions $$$ and your big homes that use more electricity in a month than the average family uses in a year.

[grossph]

And go figure....Al Gore is set to become a billionaire if Cap and Tax passes....wonder why he keeps pushing the legislation...if he really cared about the planet he would down size his home, reduce the number of cars he drives and stop flying private jets...but he won't....

[Endbringer]

Global warming, while true, is not man-made. All observable evidence points to the sun as the reason for the Earth warming. But, when you use these computer models that predict the end of the world, for some reason they didn't predict the cooling that has happened since 1999. Besides, the tree-ring data used by the IPCC was peer reviewed by the same three people that took the data. Turns out, that they hand picked 4 tree ring samples out of over 200 so that they could show the "hockey stick" graph. When you include all of the tree ring samples, there is no "hockey stick" effect that is the basis of this movement to control the worlds largest economies.

These democrats in power are not like the democrats in the '60s. These liberals hate America's founding documents and hate the restrictions they have. So they just ignore it. Just like when princess Pelosi was asked if her health care bill is constitutional, she just said, "Are you seriously asking me that?" Who cares about that tiny document that gives Congress it's powers. Let's just ignore it and do what it takes to bring our economy crashing down and lower the standard of living for everyone.

[blackspyder1]

wow. No supporters for it here. Its kinda nice. The sheeple have been falling for this mad made global warming for far too long.