Hill Heat

The draft Lieberman-Warner plan has been praised and critiqued by environmental organizations. What are the fellow senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee saying?

Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) eviscerates the plan:

Your proposal would impose hardship on U.S. citizens and threaten robust growth in the U.S. economy because it does not preempt similar conflicting, overlapping or duplicative state and regional carbon control programs… because it does not provide legal certainty for carbon sequestration… because it requires significant harm to the economy before triggering cost containment and management measures… because it fails to protect low-income families and consumers sufficiently [because it] first requires setting aside allowances to meet 100% of the needs of rural electric cooperatives [and] by allowing cost relief to also go instead to middle-income consumers and energy efficiency programs [and] because the proposal also allows allowances to go to [various worthy policy goals]... because it uses a Carbon Market Efficiency Board to employ cost containment measures [instead of] a defined price point of carbon allowances… because it allocates allowances arbitrarily across economy sectors and at variance with their emissions and impact on workers, consumers and families [because they] do not reflect those sectors’ contributions to carbon equivalent emissions… because it would raise costs above those needed for emissions reduction to pay for environmental, energy and social programs [instead of] funding them through the General Fund of the U.S. Treasury… because it delays technology development financing [instead of] immediate, significant flows of funding to carbon emissions capture and storage technology development and deployment.

As does Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK):

The principles of Lieberman-Warner climate bill, as outlined today, fail to meet the two requirements established by the Senate to pass climate legislation. The Lieberman-Warner bill will significantly harm the United States economy and fail to mandate reductions from the developing world. With China now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gasses, it’s even more important that the developing nations CO2 emissions be taken into consideration. As a result, I have long supported efforts that build off of the President’s Asia-Pacific Partnership that seeks to promote technology sharing among developing nations as the way forward.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) effusively praises the draft bill:

The Lieberman-Warner proposal is a huge breakthrough in the fight against global warming. The Lieberman Warner bill will be the fifth economy-wide Senate proposal, and in addition, there are several sector-by-sector proposals, demonstrating that an increasing number of U.S. Senators want to address this issue now. When I took the gavel of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I pledged to focus on global warming and on bringing bipartisanship back to the committee. With the Lieberman-Warner bipartisan proposal, those goals have been met, and we now plan to pass legislation through the committee before the end of the year. This proposal has taken good ideas from a variety of bills, and will be an excellent starting point for the committee.

As does Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD):

Today Senators Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, and John Warner, R-VA, released the detailed outline of an economy-wide global warming bill that would significantly limit greenhouse gases. I am extremely pleased with the comprehensive nature of their bill and the strong, bipartisan leadership they bring to this critical effort. I also believe this bill has important national security implications because it will lessen our dependence on foreign energy and help achieve energy independence. We have an historic opportunity to address the most compelling environmental, energy independence and national security issue facing our nation. I pledge to work closely with my colleagues to turn this historic opportunity into reality.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is more measured:

“I commend Senator Lieberman and Senator Warner for their hard work in putting together legislation that our subcommittee will consider. There is no doubt that we need bipartisan support in the United States Senate to address the most significant environmental threat our planet has ever seen.

Given the dimensions of the crisis, however, I strongly believe that we must act aggressively to halt and then reverse global warming. I am concerned that the outline my colleagues put out today, which is a good starting point, does not go far enough. As good as it is, I hope we can do better. As a member of the subcommittee, I look forward to working with them.

The people of the United States want strong action, and the Senate must follow. In my view, we can, in fact, break our dependency on fossil fuels, substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions, move to sustainable energy and, in the process, create millions of good paying jobs. Those are the principles that I will fight for.

There do not appear to be statements from Democratic senators Baucus, Carper, Clinton, Lautenberg, Klobuchar, or Whitehouse, or Republican senators Voinovich, Isakson, Vitter, Barrasso, Craig, or Alexander.