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Senate Democrats toughen the target on greenhouse gases
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WASHINGTON - The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is to present a bill today that aims for a 20 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by the year 2020, according to several sources and a close-to-final version of the bill obtained by the Washington Post.
While Senate Democrats have made significant changes to their legislative draft over the past week, they are preserving the near-term climate target, which is more ambitious than the House-passed climate bill. The House bill, authored by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Edward Markey, D-Mass., would mandate cutting emissions 17 percent by 2020.
Both measures would require an 83 percent reduction in greenhouse gases from the 2005 baseline by 2050.
Unlike the Waxman-Markey bill, the Senate proposal preserves the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate large sources of greenhouse gases, such as coal-fired power pants.
"It's clearly stronger than the House bill," said Frank O'Donnell, who heads the advocacy group Clean Air Watch. "This very well may be the high-water mark for strong action on climate in this Congress, since it will face many efforts to erode it as it moves through the Senate."
The Senate bill also aims to ease concerns among both Democrats and Republicans about the expanding carbon footprints of China and India, by requiring the head of the Environmental Protection Agency to issue a report each year "regarding whether China and India have adopted greenhouse gas emissions standards at least as strict as those standards required under this act."
Tony Kreindler, a spokesman for the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund, sent an e-mail to reporters Tuesday morning cautioning that the bill would probably change markedly in the coming weeks as the Senate Finance and Agriculture committees weigh in, along with several centrist legislators who want to modify it, such as Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn.,
"Though the process sounds daunting, complex processes are part and parcel of passing major legislation," Kreindler wrote. "The most important thing is that the draft be taken for what it is: a starting point that senators can work with, tailor and pass."
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