legislation
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A roundup of today’s action in the Senate Environment Committee
It took nine and a half hours of chipping away at a seemingly infinite stream of amendments -- some positive, some poison-pills -- but the Senate Environment and Public Works committee favorably reported Joe Lieberman and John Warner's greenhouse gas bill, America's Climate Security Act, today.
The process wasn't easy. Republicans came armed with about 150 amendments, some of which were so toxic and clearly non-passable that it appeared they were simply trying to obstruct or derail the proceedings altogether. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, aware that the amendment avalanche would take hours to overcome, called the Senate floor to order at noon, two and a half hours later than usual, to help the bill along. It was a procedural move, designed to buy the committee time lest Republicans take advantage of a rule that would have allowed them to derail the entire proceeding. Perhaps thanks to Reid's maneuvering, that never came to pass.
Unfortunately, neither did a handful of extremely important amendments -- introduced by Senators Clinton and Sanders -- that would have strengthened ACSA enough to please dark greens, a constituency that has thus far been unimpressed with the bill's wide array of compromise measures.
At the end of a very long day, though, there were only a couple of surprises. That the bill passed was expected; that the bill was only modestly improved was expected; that Hillary Clinton didn't show up was expected.
What wasn't expected -- at least at the outset -- was that the whole process would go so smoothly. Yes, it took an extremely long time, but in the end, the minority withdrew or didn't introduce most of their amendments, and they never overtly attempted to derail the proceedings, allowing the process to be completed within one day.
Then there was the other big surprise: Sen. Bernie Sanders voted to report the legislation favorably out of the committee.
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And the vote is …
"I now move that S.2192, the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007, be reported favorably."
And here's the roll call:
11 Yeahs:
- Baucus
- Boxer
- Cardin
- Carper
- Clinton by proxy
- Klobuchar
- Lautenberg by proxy
- Lieberman
- Sanders by proxy
- Warner
- Whitehouse
8 Nays:
- Alexander
- Barrasso
- Bond by proxy
- Craig
- Inhofe
- Isakson
- Vitter
- Voinovich
A full roundup will be forthcoming.
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A strengthened role for the EPA … or not
Senator Lieberman also opposes Sanders' amendment -- which just failed -- to allow the EPA to strengthen the cap if the law-as-passed proves insufficiently effective.
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Improving the cap… or not
This is a big one. Sanders No. 4 would make the goal of the bill to reduce emissions by 80 (as opposed to about 70) percent by 2050. As the bill is written, the reductions in Lieberman-Warner (under the cap, and otherwise) don't meet the mark. Sanders says, "while it is fine that we reach a political agreement here, the scientific community is telling us that the agreement we are reaching here does not do the job that has to be done."
Lieberman, by contrast, says, "I don't think we can get the bill out of the committee with 80 percent." Perhaps he might have taken a moment to consider whether this amendment -- an aspirational amendment -- could have passed if he, the bill's author, had supported it. Instead, he opposed it, and the amendment failed.
Meanwhile, Lieberman jokingly referred to his success in a college science class he referred to as "geology and astrology [sic] ... rocks and stars". This is the guy writing our climate legislation.
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Sanders gets smacked down
Sanders' amendment -- Sanders #3 -- would have required CCS-equipped plants to sequester at least 85 percent of their pollution in order to be eligible for additional free allowances. That's what the bill used to mandate, before it was changed earlier this month. Sanders tried to change it back and was voted down with 13 "nays," including one from his usual ally Barbara Boxer.
Sanders' support of this bill may be irrelevant to its passage through committee. But if snubs like this aren't enough to convince him to continue to oppose Lieberman-Warner, it will be a sign that deep greens have lost all support in the Senate.
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Today’s takeaway: Modest improvements only
Two amendments introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) -- allowing seaside states to use their pollution allowances to respond to the coastal impacts of climate change -- passed.
But before that, Sen. Carper withdrew an amendment to give away allowances "based on output of electricity instead of historical emissions." And so the meaty amendments disappear.
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The problem with 150 amendments
The Senate convened today at noon, and Republicans raised a stink about it. Why so late? Important business to attend to!
It had to do with the 150 amendments that EPW committee Republicans brought with them to the markup hearing. The long and short of it is that, by Senate rules, any senator can object to the continuance of any committee meetings that continue beyond the first four hours that the Senate is in session.
If the committee meeting and the floor session had, as usual, started close to the same time, the markup might have ended at 1 pm. This buys them two-and-a-half additional hours at least -- a helpful gesture from the Senate leader in the face of this sort of obstructionism. His floor statement and an unofficial transcript of this morning's proceedings are reprinted below the fold:
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House Speaker restores energy bill, puts it on fast track, parries White House veto threat
Well, there’s remarkable stuff going on up on the hill today. Thanks to the persistence of Nancy Pelosi (and others), the energy bill has been almost entirely restored to its original strength — at least the House version. It now contains: 35mpg CAFE, with some Dingell-appeasing loopholes but nothing that makes it substantially weaker than […]
