Climate Legislation Expected Very Soon

Although Congress is fighting through a massive economic stimulus bill on Capitol Hill, the Senate’s top environmental lawmaker said climate change legislation is not far off and could happen within weeks, not months.

"We are not sitting back and waiting for some magic moment," said Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "We’re ready to go."

Boxer spearheaded carbon-capping legislation, and brought it to the Senate floor last year. The bill won 48 votes, with 36 opposed, but the measure died after a procedural maneuver by opponents.

Any new legislation to limit emissions of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants and fossil-fueled vehicles would build on that earlier measure, Boxer said.

"We may move in three weeks, we may move in six weeks, we could move in 10 weeks," she said. "We could get a bill out of committee tomorrow … I want to get a bill out of there that every member has a stake in, every member understands every word of it, and so it will take a while.”

There is an international meeting on climate change in Copenhagen, set for December, and that could change the timeline of the legislation.

Environmental activists, including Boxer, are applauding the Obama administration’s commitment to U.S. leadership in the global process.

Under the Boxer measure to fight global warming, she wants to set "certain and enforceable" short and long-term emissions targets; ensure state and local entities keep working to address global warming; and establish a market-based system that cuts carbon emissions.

She also favors using revenues from the carbon market to help consumers make the transition to clean energy and invest in new technology and efficiency measures, while ensuring a level global playing field with incentives for polluting countries to give their share to the international effort to curb climate change.

Environmental and conservation groups have thrown their support behind the measure including the National Wildlife Federation, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and the Environment America and Environmental Defense Fund.

The group that represents power companies-the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council-said the principles "offered many areas of common ground between the public interest community and the private sector."

However, the council wrote in a statement that cost containment and the use of new technologies were not emphasized enough in Boxer’s document.

They also questioned the document’s "apparent commitment" to let state and local programs continue after a federal law is in place.