Max Baucus (D-MT)
Washington Independent I am committed to passing meaningful, balanced climate-change legislation. I am committed to legislation that will protect our land and those whose livelihood depends on it. I want our children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy the outdoors the way that we can today. So I’m going to work to pass climate-change legislation that is both meaningful and that can muster enough votes to become law. […] Let me be clear. We should work to minimize any job losses. But we should recognize that in the case of acid rain [in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments], the negative [economic] consequences were far less than projected. We should keep this in mind when similar claims are made about the effects of legislation to address climate change.
Reuters We can not allow our manufacturing industries to fade as result of trade with countries that refuse to negotiate global solutions to global concerns. We must push our trading partners to do their part to curb harmful emissions and we must devise a border measure, consistent with our international obligations, to prevent the carbon leakage that would occur if US manufacturing shifts to countries without effective climate change programs.
John Kerry (D-MA)
DTN Well, EPA is poised to move. Everybody needs to understand that. I’m going to make this as clear as I can: I don’t think anybody is going to wind up [blocking] EPA, because there’s filibuster-proof capacity to prevent that from happening. I’ll personally stand on the Senate floor, day and night, to prevent that from happening. Therefore, success in this is not defined by stopping a Senate bill. The reason is, EPA will then regulate without assistance to coal, without allocation of allowances that help companies to make the transition. And then you’re out there on your own. So the game in town, folks, is here. It’s in the Congress, where we have the ability to mitigate the transitional costs and to be reasonable in the process. That’s something people really need to focus on.
Robert Menendez (D-NJ)
E&E News Right now, plenty of other nations, including China, are ahead of us in manufacturing solar power technology, which better positions them for economic strength in the 21st Century. We have always been a world leader in innovation, and it’s time that we grab this economic opportunity.