Sustainability • Volume 8 • Number 11 • 13th June 2008

US Senate Rejects Climate Bill; Topic Still Very Much Alive


As anticipated, the Lieberman-Warner climate bill, widely lauded as the most aggressive and comprehensive climate bill introduced in the US, did not gather enough support in a 6 June vote in the Senate to pass to the next stage of consideration.

The four days of deliberation on the bill were characterised more by partisan bickering than real debate. On Wednesday, 4 June, Republicans forced clerks to read the entire bill, which took over ten hours, due to a dispute over judicial nominees.

Opponents, such as Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), said that the economic burden that the bill would impose — including job losses, tax hikes estimated at US$6 trillion, and mounting electricity, gas and diesel prices — was simply too high, especially in an economy already under the weather. An editorial in the Washington Post called the bill “the most extensive government reorganisation of the American economy since the 1930s”, in reference to Roosevelt’s New Deal.

“As I suspected, reality hit the US Senate when the economic facts of this bill were exposed,” Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said. “When faced with the inconvenient truth of the bill’s impact on skyrocketing gas prices, very few Senators were willing to even debate this bill.”

Despite such wrangling and opposition, proponents of climate change legislation remain optimistic for the future of climate change legislation.

“This is moving in the direction that history needs it to move,” Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), co-sponsor of the bill along with Senator John Warner (R-VA), said.

Environmentalists are looking beyond the Bush administration — which threatened to veto the bill should it pass in the Congress — towards 2009, when a new administration will occupy the White House.

“This week’s debate was just the first round in a three-round fight,” said the Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Defense Council in a joint statement. “The Senate debate has elevated the importance of this issue for the election and the next round will be in November. The final round will be next year, when we will have the support and momentum we need to pass legislation that will more effectively build a clean energy economy and prevent the worst consequences of global warming.”

While the bill fell short of the 60 votes required, 48-36, it did gain majority support within the Senate. Six senators - including presumptive presidential candidates Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) - were unable to attend the meeting, but dispatched letters saying that they would have voted in favour of the bill had they been there, bringing its supporters to a total of 54.

Since either candidate would support a similar bill, work on a “road map” for the next president may begin as early as next week, according to Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

“We will have a Senate next year that I believe will be much more hospitable to this bill and they’ll like this bill,” Boxer said. “And we will have a president, either one, who will be hospitable to this subject and we believe will send down a bill to us and work with us.”

The 491-page bill proposed establishing an economy-wide cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions and would have cut total US emissions to 66 percent of 2005 levels by 2050. If passed, the bill would have capped greenhouse has emissions from 87 percent of pollution sources, including power plants and oil refineries. The bill contained controversial provisions on border measures to protect energy-intensive US industries against foreign competition. The legislation targeted emerging economies, such as China or India, in case these did not take ‘comparable measures’ to tackle climate change, requiring them to purchase ‘carbon offsets’ at the border.

As new climate legislation emerges in the US, the trade measures are likely to remain a part of it.

To read the bill in its entirety, see http://lieberman.senate.gov/documents/lwcsa.pdf.

“U.S. Senate abandons global warming bill,” ENS, 6 June 2008; “US carbon-capping climate bill dies in Senate,” PLANET ARK, 9 June 2008; “US climate bill dies; hope for 2009,” REUTERS, 6 June 2008; “Climate reality bites,” WALL STREET JOURNAL, 27 May 2008; “Climate Security Act dies, failing to muster enough votes to move forward,” GRIST, 6 June 2008; “Taking a dive: Why greens are glad the climate bill tanked,” NEW REPUBLIC, 10 June 2008.