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Democrats Reject Pollution-Control Conditions In Climate Plan

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Bianca
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« on: May 20, 2009, 09:48:06 am »









                           Democrats Reject Pollution-Control Conditions in Climate Plan





           
Lorraine Woellert And
Simon Lomax
May 20, 2009
(Bloomberg)

-- The House Energy and Commerce Committee, working to craft climate-change legislation, rejected Republican attempts to force abandonment of pollution limits if unemployment or prices get too high.

During a 14-hour meeting yesterday, Republicans offered a half-dozen price and economic triggers that would require the U.S. to drop the measure’s cap-and-trade controls. Democrats blocked amendments that would lift the pollution limits if unemployment rose higher than 15 percent, gasoline prices reached $5 a gallon, or electricity bills rose more than an average of 10 percent.

Such an “off-ramp” is necessary, said Republican Mike Rogers of Michigan, to protect consumers and the economy from skyrocketing energy prices that may result from the legislation.

“Let’s have a benchmark for the little guy,” said Representative John Shimkus, an Illinois Republican. “Not for the corporate titans that went behind closed doors to cut this deal.”

With each amendment vote, Republican party leaders issued press releases in Michigan, Virginia, Georgia and other states where Democratic incumbents may face close re-election campaigns next year.

Still, committee Chairman Henry Waxman maintained a coalition of industrial- and coal-state Democrats who had united behind the legislation last week.

“Your only solution is to have the law evaporate, and that’s not thoughtful,” Waxman, a California Democrat, told Shimkus.
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Bianca
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« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2009, 09:49:33 am »










Pollution Permits



The debate was part of a weeklong effort to craft legislation that would set limits on U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions and allow companies to buy and sell pollution permits.

Democrats said the climate program would create jobs by spurring demand for clean-energy technologies. The measure, called the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would give free pollution permits to steel, aluminum, paper, chemical and other manufacturers whose prices are sensitive to imports.

Republican Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri offered language to abandon the cap-and-trade emission-control system if electricity rates rose. Missouri utility regulators have estimated that the legislation would increase electricity rates by as much as 40 percent, he said.

“We must look at the real ramifications this bill will have on our already struggling economy,” Blunt said. The committee rejected the amendment on 32-23 vote, largely along party lines.
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Bianca
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« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2009, 09:50:31 am »









China, India



A provision offered by Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan would have allowed greenhouse-gas emission limits in the U.S. only if China and India adopted standards that were “at least as stringent.” The committee rejected the proposal on a 36-23 party-line vote.

Republican Representative Fred Upton of Michigan argued that the U.S. would lose jobs if Congress enacted a pollution cap-and-trade bill without similar environmental guidelines adhered to in China and India.

“If we don’t demand that they have the same kind of criteria that we do, we’re going to see those jobs go,” Upton said.

Rogers’s amendment triggered a debate over the potential effect of the greenhouse-gas limits on domestic manufacturing, international trade and global climate-change negotiations.

“What bothers me about this amendment is we’re going to let some other country decide our fate,” Waxman said.
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Bianca
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« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2009, 09:51:34 am »









Tariff Authority



Representative Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat who opposed Rogers’s amendment, said the permits provided to industries would last until at least 2025 to protect against energy cost increases that could benefit competitors in other countries. After 2025, the cap-and-trade legislation would let the president impose a tariff on goods produced in countries that don’t limit greenhouse-gas emissions.

“I wouldn’t vote for a bill if I believed this was going to cause us to lose jobs in the steel industry,” Doyle said.

Waxman wants his committee to pass a climate bill by the end of the week, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, has said she wants a full House vote on the measure by August. President Barack Obama has urged Congress to act on climate-change legislation before a global meeting in Copenhagen in December.

Earlier yesterday, the committee voted 51-6 to create a federal loan program to finance “breakthrough” clean-energy technologies.

The provision would create a Clean Energy Deployment Administration to promote investment in clean energy technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration.
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« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2009, 09:53:17 am »









‘Cash for Clunkers’



Lawmakers also approved, 50-4, a “cash for clunkers” program that would give vouchers worth as much as $4,500 to consumers who trade in their cars for newer, more energy- efficient models.

The new cars would have to get at least 4 miles more to the gallon than the trade-in to qualify for the subsidy. The provision would apply to cars made in the U.S. and elsewhere, in compliance with world trade rules.

The provision is one of several in the bill that would affect the U.S. auto industry. The legislation would double to $50 billion a loan program to help automakers comply with higher fuel-economy standards.

Republicans and Democrats united to accept an amendment from Ohio Democrat Zack Space that would expand the bill’s incentives for carbon capture-and-storage technology at newly built power plants to include retrofits at existing plants.

Obama yesterday announced the first national standard for greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles as well as tougher fuel-mileage standards. Automakers must meet average efficiency standards of 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.




To contact the reporters on this story:

Lorraine Woellert
in Washington at
lwoellert@bloomberg.net ;


Simon Lomax
in Washington at
slomax@bloomberg.net .
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