After a meeting between President Obama and a bipartisan group of U.S. senators, leading Senate proponents of climate and energy legislation say the only climate bill with a chance of passage this year would be a measure placing a cap on the carbon dioxide emissions of electric power utilities.
At least two Republican senators — Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine — involved in Tuesday’s meeting with Obama said they would support placing a cap and price on the CO2 emissions of utilities, provided that most or all of the proceeds were rebated to taxpayers.
A key sponsor of climate and energy legislation in the Senate, John Kerry (D-Mass), suggested he might be willing to drop his move to place a cap and a price on CO2 emissions throughout the economy in favor of a more limited bill capping the emissions of electric utilities. During the meeting with 23 senators, Obama “was very strong about the need to put a price on carbon pollution and make polluters pay,” said Sen. Joe Leiberman (I-Conn), although senators said Obama did not endorse any specific legislation.
A key to getting a climate and energy bill passed before the Senate recesses in August is the support of electric utilities, and the president of one utility — New Jersey-based PSEG — said his company would support a bill placing a cap and a price on CO2 emission for utilities.
photo: mangpages
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It will be interesting to see how this pans out.. U.S. Senate Climate Bill To Focus on CO2 Cap on Utilities | http://bit.ly/d33YrB
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Anything even close to cap and trade will be a disaster for our country. I can’t believe that people don’t realize this. Higher utility costs, dive in the economy – and for what! Please don’t call those two senators Republicans.
They should focus on the main problem about emissions. Global Warming is a hoax, is not caused by CO2 emissions, is caused by the SUN.
Mark, I agree with you. I think the global warming hoax is all about money – subsidies, tax credits, renewable energy credits (RECs). I could have this conversation for 48 hours.
I, of course, may have a biased perspective. But at least the Kerry-Lieberman proposal of cap and trade has 82% of the revenue generated going back to consumers. The point of any energy legislation is not to increase your utility costs, but rather decrease them over time using renewable domestic energy resources.
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