As Democrats on Capitol Hill and the White House contemplated the fallout of the special election results in Massachusetts on Tuesday, proponents of major climate change legislation said they would persist in their efforts to win passage of a bill this year, despite a hostile political environment. Just like ramming through the health care deal.
The effort to enact comprehensive energy and climate change legislation was in trouble even before the Republican, Scott Brown, won the Massachusetts special election for Senate.
And another intelligent life-form reduces the chances of passage.
Senate leaders had put off until spring any consideration of a measure capping greenhouse gas emissions similar to that passed by the House last June, because Senate Democrats were deeply divided on it.
White House officials continued to insist that a cap-and-trade measure to limit carbon dioxide emissions coupled with incentives for clean energy development remained a top priority of President Obama. But administration officials and Senate Democratic leaders have been quietly negotiating a scaled-back package focusing more on job-creating technologies than on limiting climate-altering pollution in hopes of keeping Democratic votes and perhaps attracting a few Republicans.
Attack from another direction!
Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, earlier this week declared cap-and-trade “dead' for this session of Congress. He predicted the Senate would consider a more limited energy bill that provides incentives for nuclear power and oil drilling, sets energy efficiency standards for buildings and appliances and forces utilities to shift to renewable power sources.
Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts and co-sponsor of the Senate cap and trade bill, said that the hostile political climate does not change the need to deal with global warming “This is the single best opportunity to create jobs, reduce pollution and stop sending billions overseas for foreign oil from countries that would do us harm,' Mr. Kerry said. “Sell those arguments and you've got a winning issue.'
Actually, I find I agree with his goals...