House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-MI) recently announced that he plans to release one or more draft global warming bills by mid-April. Dingell and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), the chairman of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, have repeatedly said they want President Bush to sign an economy-wide climate bill before the end of the year, but both Democratic congressmen have, until now, refrained from outlining any more specific schedule for their efforts.
At a recent meeting with major environmental group leaders, Dingell said that drafting cap-and-trade legislation was so complex that work needed to begin now, otherwise it could take numerous years to construct a workable bill.
Chairmen Dingell and Boucher have released three "white papers" on key issues, in an attempt to focus their 57-Member Committee on several of the hurdles to enacting a cap-and-trade plan. The three "white papers" released by the Committee focused on: the benefits and core design elements of a cap-and-trade program, the competitiveness of U.S. industry under a cap-and-trade regime, and what the role of state and local governments in a climate program.
Clearly, Dingell and Boucher have a difficult job ahead of them to find a majority of Committee members to support a bill. The Committee has a number of liberal Democrats, such as Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Henry Waxman (D-CA), who will demand strict emission limits, as well as coal- and oil-state Democrats, such as Reps. Bart Gordon (D-TN) and Charlie Gonzalez (D-TX) and Chairman Boucher, himself, who are concerned about the economic impacts to their local economies if a cap-and-trade bill is advanced. In addition, there are a number of Republican members on the Committee who question whether climate change is even a problem.