The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which aimed to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 66% by 2050 died on the Senate floor last friday, after debate that lasted less than a week.
The bill failed by 12 votes to pass a procedural vote, which would have limited discussion of the bill and avoided a filibuster by Republicans.
However, it should be noted that seven Republicans voted in support of the bill, and four Democrats opposed it. Six Senators, including presidential hopefuls Barack Obama, John McCain and Hillary Clinton, were not present for the vote, but sent letters expressing their support.
Capitol Hill observers did not expect the bill to pass the Senate, but many were surprised at the brevity of the debate, ten hours of which were given to a complete reading of the bill, forced by Republicans protesting the blocking of judicial appointees by Senate Democrats.
President Bush said before debate began that he would veto the bill, should it pass through Congress in its current form. As a result, the short-lived floor debate served more as a political test of wills and a staging move for continued debate next year, under a more supportive presidential administration.
To that end, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said she plans to meet in the next few weeks with Senate Democrats who expressed concern over the bill, but who sided with the party.
Ten Senate Democrats sent a letter to Boxer and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), outlining eight principles they would like addressed before they support the bill, such as containing costs and preventing harm to the economy.
The ten Democrats Senators were: Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), Carl Levin (D-MI), Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Jim Webb (D-VA), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Clair McCaskill (D-MO), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Ben Nelson (D-FL).
Boxer said overall the bill is making progress, and referred to a climate-change bill introduced by Lieberman and McCain three years ago that fell well short of 50 supporting votes.
Boxer said that the debate made clear which senators stand where–information that will be valuable to the next presidential administration. "We have kept this issue alive for this presidential race. This now becomes a bigger issue because it’s clear that a majority of the Congress wants to act. And that’s very, very important," Boxer said.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConneel (R-KY) framed the situation differently, saying Democrats abandoned the bill. He said, "On the one hand, the majority says climate change is the most important issue facing the planet. Yet they’ve rushed the debate on that topic and brought the bill to a premature end. They brought it down before we could vote on gas prices, on clean-energy technology, or on protecting American green jobs."
The Union of Concerned Scientists summed things up this way: "We have witnessed a turning point in the debate over global warming. It has gone from a niche environmental issue to a national issue of concern to virtually all Americans. The call for aggressively addressing the climate crisis will only grow stronger over the coming year."
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