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E&E News (subs. req’d) has a good article on the prospects for climate legislation in an election year — note at the end that House Republicans are going to oppose any serious, mandatory action:
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) sees this year’s wide-open presidential election campaign as presenting a significant hurdle that could stymie passage of a global warming bill during this session of Congress.
“It’s going to verge on impossible,” the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said yesterday in an exclusive interview. “We haven’t calculated the number of days that exist here for the drafting of legislation, but it’s not very many. And so the writing of the legislation is going to be difficult. And the presidential election is going to be a tremendous distraction. As will be the elections of all the members.”
Dingell said he had his doubts about whether the Senate will be successful in adopting a bill this year from Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman and Virginia Republican John Warner. Senate Democratic leaders say they hope to bring the bill up before the summer, but Dingell was
skeptical.“There’s a big difference between saying, ‘We want to try,’ and, ‘We’re going to,’” he said.
The Capitol Hill debate over mandatory limits on heat-trapping greenhouse gases has largely been focused on the Senate. There, Democrats need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster expected from Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe. An E&E Daily analysis published earlier this week found that Democrats are within sight of 60.
But Dingell predicted it won’t be so easy.
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