Got shovel?
nbc4.tv
Posted on 01/17/2007 5:46:09 PM PST by NormsRevenge
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer are embracing two different approaches to fighting global warming as the new Democrat-led Congress prepares to take action on the issue.
Feinstein has attracted industry support with a bill targeting the electricity sector that would allow trades of pollution credits. Boxer, who chairs the Senate's environment committee that will hold hearings on the issue, has signed onto legislation aiming for more dramatic cuts of heat-trapping emissions.
Both Democrats are citing California's landmark anti-global-warming law, passed last year, which imposed the nation's first cap on greenhouse gas emissions. They're also both optimistic about the opportunity to get legislation passed in the next two years, something that Congress has not been able to do because of opposition from the Bush administration and majority Republicans.
"If we act now and act with purpose, the most serious consequences can be averted," Feinstein said at a news conference Wednesday to introduce her legislation. If not, "It will be catastrophic and there is no going back."
Feinstein's bill joins legislation by Sens. John McCain, Joseph Lieberman and Barack Obama that creates a similar cap-and-trade system. Boxer, Sen. Ted Kennedy and others have signed onto legislation by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., that would implement the most stringent emission cuts, aiming to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
The chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, is preparing a more modest bill to slow growth of greenhouse gases.
As chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, it will fall to Boxer to work on reconciling the competing approaches, and she's planning a hearing later this month for senators to discuss their legislation.
"What we're doing now is welcoming everybody's ideas. This one is a very important one with a focus on utilities," Boxer said of Feinstein's legislation.
Feinstein's bill, the first of five she anticipates introducing on global warming, targets the electricity sector, which accounts for 33 percent of global warming emissions. By 2020, she aims to reduce emissions from power plants 25 percent below levels they'd otherwise be projected to reach that year.
Her "cap and trade" approach would allow power companies to buy, sell and trade "credits," each representing one ton of carbon dioxide.
Feinstein's bill has backing from six power companies, including Calpine Corp. and Pacific Gas and Electric, whose chief executives joined her at her press conference. Those companies are not as reliant on coal, a major greenhouse gas producer, as power companies like Southern California Edison, which refused to back Feinstein's bill.
"They declined, I assume, because they have coal," Feinstein said. "...The hard part is coal, dirty coal, that doesn't want to change."
SoCal Edison issued a brief statement saying the company wants to evaluate the various global warming bills before taking a final position.
The legislation Boxer is supporting doesn't take a cap-and-trade approach, which some environmentalists view skeptically. Her bill is backed by environmental groups including the Sierra Club and National Audobon Society, but some moderate senators believe it's too extreme to get through Congress in its current form.
The Bush administration has opposed mandatory caps on carbon emissions. Bush is expected to use his State of the Union address next week to stake out an approach on the issue.
California's law seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, but doesn't go past 2020. It allows for the creation of a cap-and-trade program, which Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports over the opposition of some Democrats in the Legislature.
So I'm guessing that Boxer's mansion is completely powered by solar panels, and when she travels back and forth to DC she goes by hot air baloon.
SCE should tell both of these women to take it and shove it! I knew this was going to be a long two years with the RATs in charge.
Do either Babs or Diane know that half the citrus crop in CA was destroyed by ice?
Got shovel?
nbc4.tv
Is that a salt truck in the picture? Wonder if the salt will tick off the envirowackos. Looks more like Global cooling to me in that picture.
Cap and Trade
Code word for Kyoto-style carbon trading casinos, ahem, markets.
wealth transfer :-)
I don't think they salted, I'm surprised they had a truck with a plow available.
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