In early April, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid formally announced he would schedule consideration of a modified version of the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade climate change bill during the first week of June. Given the complexity of the legislation, the impacts on the economy and the strong opposition from Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK), it is unclear if the Senate will be able to muster the 60-votes needed to pass it. EPW Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has been working to secure the needed votes, and has tried to discourage "controversial" floor amendments; however, many insiders believe it will be difficult to pass a comprehensive bill in the Senate this spring.
In April, Ranking Member Inhofe is planning a week of briefings on the effects of the legislation on different industry sectors. APPA has been invited to present its economic analysis of the bill on the electric industry at the briefing.
In the House side, Chairman Dingell recently announced that he plans to release one or more draft global warming bills by mid-April. Dingell and House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher (D-VA) 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 a specific schedule for their efforts. At a recent meeting with leading environmentalists, 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. Morgan Meguire has learned from key staff, however, that the April timeline is "too aggressive" and that legislation is more likely to be made public in June.
Chairmen Dingell and Boucher have released three "white papers" on key issues, in an attempt to focus their Committee on several of the hurdles to enacting a cap-and-trade plan. The three papers 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 is 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 are demanding a more aggressive policy, as well as moderate coal- and oil-state Democrats, such as Reps. Bart Gordon (D-TN) and Charlie Gonzalez (D-TX), who will likely be more cautious. Moreover, Chairman Boucher is concerned about the economic impacts to local economies if a cap-and-trade bill is advanced. In addition, some Republicans on the Committee question whether climate change is even a problem.