EnviroNotes

One U.S. Climate Change Bill Dies in Senate - Another Introduced
in the House

By Matt Gernand, Attorney, Environmental Law Department, Bingham McHale LLP

Proposed legislation that would have established a cap-and-trade greenhouse gas emissions program was defeated in the Senate on Friday June 6, 2008. The bill, Senate Bill 3036, would have required the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 19 percent by 2020 and 66 percent by 2050. The bill would have also established an $802 billion dollar fund to be used for tax relief to protect consumers from increased energy costs. The bill, facing a filibuster by Senate Republicans, needed 51 votes to “invoke cloture,” a process that would have ended the Senate debate thereby precluding an attempted filibuster. The cloture motion only received 48 votes. Indiana Senator Evan Bayh voted for the cloture while Senator Richard Lugar voted against it.

Meanwhile, U.S. Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) introduced a similar bill into the House of Representatives on June 4, 2008. H.R. 6186 would also establish a cap-and-trade emissions program which would require a reduction of greenhouse gases of 85% from 2005 levels by the year 2050. The bill would also require the U.S. EPA to establish revised New Source Performance Standards for coal-fired electric generating units by January 1, 2009. You can obtain the full text version of the bill and track its status at www.govtrack.us.

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