Climate Bill 2.0 on Hold

Senator Graham has announced that he’s withdrawing from the effort to pass the bill that he helped to draft, because he’s irked that the Administration is pressing forward on immigration reform.  I’m struggling a bit to understand this.  The charitable explanation is that he’s trying to pressure the administration into giving the climate bill priority.  The uncharitable explanations are that he’s caving in to pressure from party leaders, or that he’s just having a hissy fit.

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Reader Comments

2 Replies to “Climate Bill 2.0 on Hold”

  1. Dear Dan,
    There may be another explanation for Senator Graham’s resistance. At this time, there is neither conclusive scientific proof, nor any type of guarantee (or reasonable probability), that the proposed Climate Bill would have any effect on atmospheric temperature whatsoever, either long term or short term. In the absence of such proof the entire proposal can safely be postponed indefinitely and this would reduce our national deficit without any significant risk to public health and safety. It appears that Senator Graham is well informed and reasonable on this issue, and we need more leaders in the Democratic Party to follow his example.

  2. Apparently, things are not as dire as Sen Graham’s announcement suggests. Today’s e&e Daily has an interview with Lieberman in which he says, among other things:
    “We’re going to keep moving forward. I’m encouraged that we’re heading back on track by two conversations this morning. Senator [Harry] Reid called. He’s basically expressed his disappointment. … He restated, notwithstanding contrary messages[:] One, he’s committed to doing the energy and climate bill this year. Two, he’ll do it as soon as it’s ready. … So, in other words, he’ll bring our bill to the floor, and he expects it to come up first. So I was reassured by that. … Second, we had a conversation on the phone with Senators Kerry and Graham. … Lindsey … really wanted the two of us to know that he’s proud of what we put together. He’s very excited about the business community’s support for our approach. He’s with us. He’s continuing to work with us. He just needs to be reassured that immigration reform will not be allowed to interfere with our bill. … One thought we have, that Lindsey suggested, and I think it’s a good one, is we could actually send the text to EPA so we can begin the modeling, which according to EPA would take five or six weeks anyway. That’ll make sure we don’t lose real time if we can get back together. So this morning I’m feeling we’re back at a fighting chance at getting this done. But we still have work to do.”

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About Dan

Dan Farber has written and taught on environmental and constitutional law as well as about contracts, jurisprudence and legislation. Currently at Berkeley Law, he has al…

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About Dan

Dan Farber has written and taught on environmental and constitutional law as well as about contracts, jurisprudence and legislation. Currently at Berkeley Law, he has al…

READ more

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