According to the Politico, “Barbara Boxer plans to bypass Republicans on climate vote.” Committee Republicans have refused to a markup of the Kerry-Boxer (S.1733) global warming bill because EPA has not conducted a full analysis of the legislation. Committee rules prevent Boxer (D-CA), who chairs the committee, from moving forward with a markup if at least two minority Senators are present. Committee precedent also prevents her from reporting a bill out off committee.
At 8:30 this morning, the EPW website announced the committee would indeed meet this morning, which indicated Boxer may be ready to ignore decades of committee precedent and report out the Kerry-Boxer bill. The procedural gambit gets complicated though, because committee rules prevent amendments from being considered without minority participation. According to E&E News PM (subs. req’d.), Senator Whitehouse (D-RI) acknowledged this difficulty:
Let me put it this way, I don’t know a way to take up an amendment without two Republicans present. That’s been the problem.”
That means that Democrats on the committee who expressed serious concerns over the 925-page chairman’s mark would not have an opportunity to debate and vote on their amendments. During last week’s hearings, Senator Baucus (D-MT) expressed his concerns, saying:
I have some concerns about the overall direction of the bill before us today, and whether it will lead us closer to or further away from passing climate change legislation. For example, I have serious reservations with the depth of the mid-term reduction target in the bill and the lack of preemption of the Clean Air Act’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.”
Baucus submitted 11 amendments to the chairman’s mark, including six of which dealt with the bill’s stringency or the role of the EPA. Despite such concerns, Senator Boxer did indeed move forward, reporting the bill out of committee. None of the Republicans were present, and Baucus was the only one to vote against the bill.
Boxer’s actions appear to have violated decades of precedent and despite the “success” of reporting a bill out of committee, the path forward seems very uncertain.
According to The New York Times/ClimateWire, there is a new version of the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade legislation. For those keeping track, that makes no less than five different versions in just 36 days. Let us recap:
September 29 – 684-page draft version
September 30 – 801-page updated draft version
September 30 – 821-page bill, as introduced
October 23 – 925-page chairman’s mark
November 3 – 959-page updated chairman’s mark
As we discussed earlier, there is a need for transparency in this debate and a full understanding of the economic consequences of such legislation. The 959-page version reported in the press today cannot be found on the committee’s website. The committee rules state:
(a) NOTICE: The chair of the committee or the subcommittee shall provide notice, the agenda of business to be discussed, and the text of agenda items to members of the committee or subcommittee at least 72 hours before a business meeting. If the 72 hours falls over a weekend, all materials will be provided by close of business on Friday.
To translate, it would be against committee rules for the 959-page version to be the basis of the today’s planned markup because it has not been publicly available for 72 hours. Numerous unexplained alterations make it difficult for those who are trying to follow the debate and stay informed.