by Richard Morrison
June 5, 2008

Washington, D.C., June 5, 2008—The Competitive Enterprise Institute urges Senators to vote no on a motion to end debate on the global warming legislation sponsored by Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Warner (R-VA) and championed by Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA). The bill would create a huge federal bureaucracy for rationing energy that would raise prices dramatically for consumers while rewarding politically-connected special interests with trillions of dollars in favors.

“A vote in favor of cloture on this monstrous legislation is a vote for increasing electricity and gasoline prices for the next four decades. The last thing our nation needs is a massive new expansion of the federal bureaucracy to enforce the hundreds of new mandates and regulations that the Lieberman-Warner-Boxer bill would create,” said Myron Ebell, Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Worst of all, many of the provisions in the bill are the direct result of relentless lobbying by corporations looking for special treatment and sweetheart deals – to be paid for, as always, by U.S. taxpayers.”

In debate this week, Senators began by considering the approximately 150-page bill as it was reported out of committee last December. In a surprise move, however, the Democratic leadership then attempted to replace the text of the bill with a substitute amendment sponsored by Chairman Boxer. The substitute amendment was 491 pages long. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) objected to accepting the amendment as read, which then forced the Senate’s Clerk to read the new version from 1pm to 9:30pm on Wednesday.

“The Democratic leadership in the Senate wants to end debate on the Lieberman-Warner-Boxer bill so they can quietly withdraw the bill from public scrutiny,” said Ebell. “It’s no surprise that leadership is looking for a face-saving way of making this bill go away. As a result of the brief debate this week, Americans are beginning to wake up to its disastrous consequences.”

CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.