On only the second legislative day after a historic climate bill squeaked through the U.S. House of Representatives, the Senate kicked off hearings to shape its own version of the bill. The legislation, which creates a “cap and trade” system and includes initiatives to encourage renewable and clean fuel sources, will face a much tougher battle in the Senate, where a supermajority of 60 votes is necessary to break an almost-certain filibuster by Republicans.
At the hearing on 7 July, members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, one of six committees that will craft the bill, heard testimony from President Barack Obama’s environmental big guns: Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The panel uniformly urged the committee members to follow the House’s lead in passing the legislation.
There were few surprises in the two-hour-plus, standing-room-only hearing. The panel spoke strongly against the threat and consequences of climate change, and insisted that climate change legislation would help send the U.S. down a path of economic recovery.
Democratic senators tended to avoid controversial terms like “cap and trade,” and mentioned only briefly the idea of preserving the climate for grandchildren and the like. Instead, they focused their rhetoric on less controversial ideas like reducing dependency on foreign energy sources and creating and preserving jobs.
The main criticism coming from Republican senators was cost, but they also asked for more incentives for nuclear power.
James Inhofe (Republican, Oklahoma) raised the point that big-time polluters India and China are not concerning themselves with emissions reductions like the U.S. “If we unilaterally accept this climate bill,” he asked the panel, “will it make a difference” to global climate?
In response, the panel emphasized the need for America to be leaders in climate change legislation, and the importance of the bill for creating jobs and reducing dependence on foreign energy sources.
One of the more combative exchanges began when Sen. John Barrasso (Republican, Wyoming), after declaring that evidence for anthropogenic global warming was “inconclusive at best,” accused the EPA of suppressing dissenting opinions. He referred to a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, which described the agency’s alleged silencing of a report (pdf) by economist Alan Carlin that questioned the science behind anthropogenic global warming.
Sen. Boxer said she was “disturbed” by this “brutal charge,” and gave Jackson an opportunity to respond. Jackson denied the accusations, explaining that Carlin was given freedom to distribute his report and that the original story by the Competitive Enterprise Institute inaccurately described what actually happened.
The NY Times reports that Sen. Boxer hopes to release draft legislation within the next two weeks.
More coverage
Obama Officials Urge Senate to Act on Climate – AP
Combative Start to Climate Change Hearings- NYTimes
Cabinet Members Push Climate Bill on the Hill – Washington Post
White House Presses Cap and Trade to Senate – Wall Street Journal