Global Warming Bill Passes

May 22, 2009

Global warming bill passes key committee -- after arrests of anti-coal protesters

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has approved a mammoth bill on climate change that, as the Washington Post notes, represents "the most dramatic extension of government's regulatory powers into the workings of the economy since the early days of the New Deal."

"I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that this is a turning point, in the history of the United States and [its] energy sources," said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who co-sponsored the bill with Ed Markey, D-Mass. "This is a day we've waited a long time on."

The bill "would be the first in the U.S. to establish a federal cap-and- trade system for cutting emissions tied to climate change," notes Bloomberg. "Government-issued pollution permits would be distributed to utilities, manufacturers and refiners, which could buy and sell them. The measure also would require expanded wind and solar power production."

But to get the bill passed, House Democratic leaders weakened some provisions in the bill -- for instance, giving away most of the pollution credits rather than auctioning them off, as President Obama had called for, and requiring utilities to buy at least 12% of their electricity from renewable sources, rather than 25 % as the bill orginally required.

Another provision in the bill so angered some environmental activists that they got arrested for protesting it, notes the Huffington Post:

"Capitol police arrested 15 demonstrators from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network... who were blocking the office door of Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA) in protest of his support for the coal industry. Rep. Boucher has been successful at inserting into the Waxman-Markey bill billions in incentives for coal, which plays a large role in the region of Virginia that he represents."

Republicans contend the plan would hurt U.S. consumers while having only a negligible impact on the planet’s warming, according to Bloomberg. A recent EPA analysis says the bill "would drive the clean energy transformation of the U.S. economy" but the overall impact would be too small to significantly dampen economic growth, reports the Post.

Some of the bill's biggest critics may wind up being Waxman and Markey's fellow Democrats. The New York Times quotes one longtime Democratic congressman from Mississippi, Gene Taylor, as saying, "I think of the whole cap-and-trade idea as a Ponzi scheme ... If the vote was today, I'd vote 'no.'"

--Craig Pittman

http://blogs.tampabay.com/energy/2009/05/global-warming-bill-passes-key-committee-after-arrests-of-anticoal-protesters.html