Senate Committee Passes Climate Bill despite Republicans' Boycott

Date: November 5, 2009

Source: News Room

The Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed a climate change bill despite a boycott by the committee's Republican membership, thereby moving the bill to the Senate floor. In a 10-to-1 vote, with only Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) dissenting, the committee passed the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (SB 1733), which had been introduced by Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Senator John Kerry (D-MA), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Leading Republicans on the committee said that they wanted a more detailed financial analysis of the bill before they would vote on it, but Boxer declared that the analysis already conducted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was "unprecedented in scope, and that she had the right to schedule the vote on the bill as long as a majority of the committee members were present. Democrats hold 12 of the committee's 19 seats. The partisan vote raises questions about whether Democrats will have difficulty earning support for the measure from some moderate Republicans who have expressed support for climate change legislation in the past.

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