Climate change bill hits center stage -- but this is probably just the dress rehearsal

The Senate today will take up legislation calling for cutting greenhouse gases by 70 percent from power plants, refineries, factories and transportation by mid-century -- but its backers don't expect it to pass, the Associated Press reports.

Instead they expect this go-round over the 494-page Lieberman-Warner bill -- more formally known as the Climate Security Act -- will be a dress rehearsal for next year, when a new administration is likely to help push it along.

"We thought and hoped we'd be in a more serious place, but most people are using it as an opportunity to vet ideas and advance ideas for the debate to come in the next Congress," Tim Profeta, who directs Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, told the Washington Post. "Not many people see this as a serious piece of legislation that will become law this year."

--Craig Pittman

Comments

[Ronnie]

Why is it that every solution out of Washington includes raising taxes which they get to squander? Why can't there be a solution that requires NO taxes? Let us hope this is stalled forever!