Four Democratic U.S. Senators last week said the Senate should abandon efforts to pass a climate change bill and focus on a smaller bill requiring the use of renewable energy, according to a Bloomberg report.
Senators Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan–both from North Dakota–say they don’t want an important energy bill shackled to initiatives for cutting carbon emissions, which they say do not have a chance of gathering the 60 votes needed in the Senate.
"The problem of doing both of them together is that it becomes too big of a lift," Senator Lincoln told Bloomberg. "I see the cap-and-trade being a real problem."
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has already approved legislation calling for expanded use of renewable energy. Majority Leader Harry Reid intends to combine that legislation with a system to cap carbon emissions, similar to the Waxman-Bill passed by the U.S. House in July.
"I don’t think we are going to take to the Senate floor a bill stripped of climate provisions," Reid told reporters in Las Vegas on Aug. 11.
However, the Senate environment is looking less and less friendly to climate change legislation. Last week 10 Democratic Senators sent a letter to the White House stating they would not support any climate change bill that did not provide strong protections for American businesses. A statement that suggests any bill that does pass is likely to be rather weak.
A New York Times editorial last week stated that an energy bill alone is not enough and would cause America to "lose the race against time on climate, lose the race for markets for new and cleaner energy systems, and forfeit any claim to world leadership in advance of the next round of global climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December."
Read the full editorial at the link below.
[Editor’s note: This story has been updated, adding attribution to Bloomberg.]
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