Senate Should Say ‘No’ to Ending Debate on Energy-Rationing Legislation
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.”
Energy Experts Available for
Interviews
Myron Ebell
Director of Energy
Policy
202-331-2256
William Yeatman
Energy Policy
Analyst
202-331-2270
Chris Horner
Senior Fellow
[email protected]
Iain Murray
Senior Fellow
[email protected]
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.