NAMI News
The latest trinational news.Friday, May 22, 2009
Climate Bill Clears Hurdle, but Others Remain
The New York Times, May 22, 2009 - “The House Energy and Commerce Committee, splitting largely along party lines, approved on Thursday the most ambitious energy and global warming legislation ever debated in Congress. The bill’s passage, on a 33-to-25 vote, served as a bookend to a week that began with President Obama’s announcing a deal with auto manufacturers to impose tough new mileage and emissions standards for all cars and trucks sold in the United States starting in 2012.With progress on this legislation and his own executive actions, Mr. Obama is assembling the pieces of a credible American package to take to Copenhagen later this year as United Nations negotiators gather for talks on a new global warming treaty. But the energy legislation passed on Thursday still faces a tortuous path through several more House committees before it can be brought up for a vote later this year. In the Senate, leaders say they lack the votes to pass the bill as it is now written. Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, sponsored the bill. Mr. Waxman called it “decisive and historic.” “When this bill is enacted,” Mr. Waxman said, “we’ll break our dependence on foreign oil, make our nation a leader in clean-energy jobs and technology and cut global warming pollution.” The objections of the Republican opponents were summed up in the words of Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, who said the bill would mean sharp increases in energy costs and the loss of millions of jobs.“This is the biggest energy tax in the history of the United States,” Mr. Rogers said.” Read More.
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