Boxer Rams Economy-Killing Energy-Rationing Bill through EPW Committee
Boxer Rams Economy-Killing Energy-Rationing Bill through EPW Committee
Tactics Doom Cap and Trade in Senate
Washington, D.C., November 5, 2009— Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) today rammed a major energy-rationing bill through the committee, without the presence of any Republicans on her committee. (See news story.)
Under Senate committee rules and precedent, two members of the minority are customarily required to make a quorum for marking up a bill. But Republicans balked at Democratic efforts to pass the energy tax-and-ration bill before a complete analysis of its economic impacts had been done by EPA. The bill, S. 1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Security Act, was introduced by Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.). The chief co-sponsor is Chairman Boxer.
“We congratulate Chairman Boxer and the committee’s Democrats for their methods. They have so poisoned the atmosphere in the Senate that the terrible Kerry-Boxer bill is now dead,” said Myron Ebell, CEI Director of Energy and Global Warming Policy. “We also congratulate Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and the committee’s other Republicans for their steadfast opposition. They have made clear that the Democrats cannot move this catastrophic bill without violating the Senate’s rules.”
“This transparent end-run around agreed Senate rules not only is an admission that the bill’s floor chances are non-existent, but it further dooms them,” said Christopher Horner, CEI Senior Fellow and energy policy expert, in an earlier statement. “What we see now is the acting out of the global warming industry’s frustration over politicians valuing their own jobs, even if they recklessly flirt with threatening the jobs of others.
“The aim now is to wave around a committee-passed bill at the December ‘Kyoto’ talks in Copenhagen, as the ultimate ‘offset’ for the lack of political will to impose energy rationing on America, even through this back door,” said Horner. “But, as one key senator recently said, there’s no bill so bad that it can’t be voted out of the Senate Environment Committee.”
In related news, CEI yesterday criticized the U. S. Chamber of Commerce and called on small business members to withdraw their membership in the U. S. Chamber and join with CEI in continuing to fight against all energy-rationing legislation. Ebell offered further comment. “It is unfortunate that the U. S. Chamber of Commerce has decided to give new life to this dead horse by announcing that they want to work with Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on some other version of the legislation,” he said. “Today’s committee action as well as the result in Virginia’s gubernatorial election show that it can be defeated if major groups like the U. S. Chamber can refrain from snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”
> Read on-going commentary on global warming at Globalwarming.org.
> View a video on global warming at CEIondemand.org: Policy Peril