Monday, November 2nd, 2009
Republican US senators plan boycott of committee votes on climate change, want more studies
WASHINGTON - Republican senators demanded additional studies Monday on the cost and job impact of a climate bill before it is voted on by a crucial committee. The action exposed sharp the partisan divide in Congress over legislation aimed at dealing with global warming.
Ranking Republican members of six Senate committees that are playing a part in crafting an overall bill to reduce greenhouse gases said an Environmental Protection Agency analysis was unsatisfactory, although supporters of the bill called it an exhaustive examination.
Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, co-sponsor of the climate bill, which is before her Environment and Public Works Committee, said she plans to press ahead with consideration of the measure on Tuesday, even as Republican panel members threatened to boycott the proceedings.
In a letter to Boxer, the minority party members warned that failure to accommodate Republican senators seeking further studies "would severely damage rather than help" the chances of getting bipartisan support needed to get a bill through the Senate.
The Democratic bill would impose mandatory caps on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and industrial facilities and cut emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Polluters would be given emission allowances that they could trade among themselves to ease the economic effect of the transition from fossil fuels.
Republicans have argued that the bill, patterned after legislation passed this year by the House of Representatives, amounts to a huge energy tax because energy, including electricity, from fossil fuels will become more expensive. Boxer argues such costs can be contained and cites the EPA study that says the cost to households would on average be $80 to $111 a year.
Boxer said she wants to try to accommodate the Republicans but insisted she will push ahead with plans to begin voting on amendments to the bill. When those votes will start was unclear. Boxer said Tuesday she will make available officials from the EPA so Republicans can quiz them about their cost study.
"We think this is going the extra mile for our friends on the other side," Boxer told reporters Monday. "We want to move the process forward."
But Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the environmental committee's ranking Republican, said he expects his party's senators to stay away, except possibly for one Republican to make the case for the boycott. "There has to be some sort of leverage" to get a more detailed study, said Inhofe, a sharp critic not only of the Democratic bill but of the science of climate change.
While Boxer said she hoped the Republicans would change their minds and participate, Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg, another committee member, was not as kind at a news conference.
"It's almost like school children over there," said Lautenberg.
