CQ TODAY MIDDAY UPDATE
Oct. 7, 2008 – 2:07 p.m.
House Panel Unveils Climate Change Proposal
Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee have released their long-awaited draft legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions.
The proposal unveiled Tuesday by Chairman John D. Dingell , D-Mich., and Rick Boucher , D-Va., will provide a starting point for debate in the House next year. The lawmakers were under increasing pressure to release legislative text.
The draft follows the general model of the bill the Senate debated but did not finish earlier this year. The House did not take up similar legislation even though it was a priority for Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif.
In a memorandum to committee members, Dingell and Boucher attributed the delay to the complexity of the issue.
“Our work has been predicated on the belief that a thorough, deliberative and purposeful examination of the facts would yield the best result,” said Dingell and Boucher, chairman of the subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality.
Like the Senate bill, the new draft would cap emissions of greenhouse gases and set up a market-based program for businesses to trade emissions credits. But the early years of the House panel’s proposal would be less aggressive than in the Senate bill.
The draft would require 6 percent emission reductions by 2020, compared to 19 percent in the Senate bill. But the targets would ramp up in later years to require 80 percent reductions by 2050. The Senate proposed 71 percent reductions by that year.
Dingell and Boucher said this would allow time for the deployment of clean energy technology, particularly carbon capture and sequestration from coal-fired power plants. “In the early years of the program, caps would be set at a level that is realistically achievable to ensure that firms are able to adjust gradually,” they said.
The bill also proposes controversial limits on the ability of states to implement their own emissions caps. Some states, including California, have begun to create their own emissions-reduction programs.
Another provision, which the draft presents as one of several options, would preempt state motor vehicle emission standards.
Comments
2050? Whoooah.... slow down, guys. Let's not do anything too radical.
If there is ever going to be a real change with air pollutants from vehicles John Dingle shouldnt be anywhere near tjhe negotiations. Get real and lets have some real change not the same old crap
Do you know why we have spam? because when California passed a law banning it, Congress passed a toothless law that "pre-empted" California's ban. I have not read this legislation, but that is what it smells like based on the info available here.
This bill is a dangerous distraction from the real solutions...The numbers are significant in this case: The broad (UN) scientific consensus is that we need carbon reductions of "80% reductions below 1990 levels by 2050". Why do politicians think they can just undercut science in the name of "compromise" and "bringing all the interests to the table"...This bill's "80% below 2005 levels by 2050" means WE STILL BURN THE PLANET for our kids...cities under water, lakes dried up. All of it...those 15 years make a difference, Rep. Dingell. And really....REALLY-how can people take seriously Rep. John Dingell on a climate bill?? He is widely quote as "The representative of the automobile industry"...do you really think he has reducing emissions at heart? Come on...
Let's not forget the emissions control already in progress. Our economy is about to make an "off runway" landing. With John Dingell at the controls, economic destruction is a given.
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