We’ve been seeing a lot of activity in the past few months in the House of Representatives on climate and energy – see a number of blog items here on the Waxman-Markey bill. The Senate hasn’t been idle, certainly, but they’ve been flying a bit below the radar. Senator Boxer, chair of the Environment & Public Works Committee, is waiting for the House to finish its work before she formally takes up climate change in committee. However, Senator Bingaman, chair of the Energy & Natural Resources Committee, has been getting at the energy end of things. The committee yesterday voted 15-8 to approve a broad package that includes a renewable portfolio standard (aka renewable electricity standard) of 15%. “This bill will help shift our country to cleaner sources of energy, and more secure sources as well,” Bingaman said. The bill also opens up hitherto-banned areas offshore for oil and gas drilling, and also gives the federal government ultimate authority in determining questions of transmission line routing. Reuters reports here that “It is unclear when the full chamber will consider the energy package. Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hoped to combine the energy measures with climate legislation.” As I’ve noted, Sen. Boxer is expected to get cap-and-trade legislation up to speed after the House completes its work.
Meanwhile, all the signals from the House are that a floor vote will happen as soon as next week. Steny Hoyer, the Majority Leader in the House, said this is moving forward. See House may vote on climate change bill next week, also from Reuters, in which Hoyer says they’ll wrap things up before the July 4th recess, or just after. As I noted in an earlier post, Nancy Pelosi has said she wants the legislation passed – or else. (HT to “The Hill.”)
Henry Waxman, the commanding general in the House in this Homeric struggle to effect a new path for energy and the climate, has been working night and day (really since his accession to the chairmanship last November) to effect all the changes – yes, and compromises – necessary to make the legislation viable. I heard any number of speakers at the conference I attended last week laud Waxman for his leadership. I’ve been a huge fan since the 1980’s when he was chairman of the Health and Environment Subcommittee.
Here is a ClimateWire story, via the “NY Times,” that discusses Waxman’s talks with the Agriculture Committee heavyweights, led by Collin Peterson, the chair. The story reports that “…farm state lawmakers have not been shy in stating their problems with provisions in the bill that give U.S. EPA the principal oversight role for the carbon offset market. Peterson also is against a draft EPA regulation that would hold the ethanol industry accountable for ‘indirect land use,’ such as crop conversion in other countries.” (The serious implications of land use changes was the subject of my post, Are Biofuels A Bummer?, from over a year ago.)
Peterson, according to this from “The Wonk Room,” is quite a piece of work. He seems to be denying the impacts of climate change on agriculture, flying full in the face of the federal government’s critical report, Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, issued this week. (Stay tuned for more on the study in a later post here.)
