Tulsa World: Panel OKs climate bill with Republicans away

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Panel OKs climate bill with Republicans away
Sen. Jim Inhofe argues that the Democrats-only vote violated rules.

By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
Published: 11/6/2009 2:23 AM
Last Modified: 11/6/2009 4:35 AM

WASHINGTON — A key Senate committee ended a days-long Republican boycott led by U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe when it voted Thursday to send a sweeping climate change bill to the Senate floor.

Following the 11-1 vote with no Republicans present, Inhofe, R-Okla., claimed that the action not only violated committee rules but signaled the death knell for the bill.

He said the vote, which he termed the "nuclear option," would bolster his case against global warming next month at a climate meeting in Copenhagen that some hope will produce an international agreement on the issue.

"It's all about Copenhagen," Inhofe said of the vote by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

No one was predicting an easy path or a quick vote for the legislation.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who appears to be becoming a key player on the bill, agreed that the version approved by the committee would not draw the 60 votes usually needed for Senate passage.

Graham said the committee's vote helped in advance of the Copenhagen meeting.

The message for that meeting must be that the U.S. is taking the issue seriously, he said.

Graham and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who introduced the bill, are part of a group that is trying to come up with another version that could attract the votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles on the floor.

The House approved its version of the bill earlier.

Inhofe perhaps is the most vocal skeptic

in Congress of man-made global warming. He dismisses the urgency that others place on efforts to pass a bill addressing the issue.

He was the only Republican to attend the committee's session, but he left for another meeting shortly before the vote.

Inhofe once again expressed Republicans' request for a complete economic analysis of the huge bill before the committee acted.

Republicans believe that the Environmental Protection Agency had agreed to do that review, which would take weeks.

The committee's chairwoman, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., cited a EPA briefing earlier this week and said she had concluded that additional analysis at this point would be duplicative and a waste of money.

The bill has already gone under unprecedented review, she said.

The bill needs to move to reduce pollution, address the country's dependence on foreign oil and create jobs, she said.

"This is a jobs bill, make no mistake about it," she said.

Boxer rejected Inhofe's claim that Thursday's vote violated any Senate rule.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who cast the lone "no" vote, said the target in the bill remained too high. Such a goal would require that other countries play by the same rule, he said.

Jim Myers (202) 484-1424
jim.myers@tulsaworld.com

By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau

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Some reader comments for this page were copied from "Senate committee passes climate bill," which was published on 11/5/2009.

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