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With a razor-thin margin of just seven votes, the House of Representatives on Friday evening passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act - the first bill to put a fixed and declining cap on U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. Republicans and Democrats in the House spent much of the day sparring in sharp language over the bill, which will reduce U.S. carbon emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83% below by 2050. In the end, the vote of 219 to 212 included more than 40 Democrats who broke ranks with their party's leadership to vote against...
...potential cost to the consumer has dogged the bill for months. Republicans, citing an MIT study, say the measure could cost households as much as $3,100 a year, a number disputed by factcheck.org. The group interviewed one of the authors of that study, who said the true impact would be more like $800 a year. The Congressional Budget Office, giving a boost to Democrats, last week said the program would cost the average family $175 in 2020. Whatever the expense, Republicans are labeling the bill as a carbon tax that - on top of the stimulus and the push...
...more than 1,200-page bill, known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, would give away carbon credits to energy aggregators, producers, refiners and others - a financial boon worth more than $600 billion - to help offset costs for consumers. The Administration initially envisioned auctioning off the credits to raise money for green jobs and other Obama priorities, but that idea was met with stiff resistance from the business community...
...critics, the bill does have the backing of dozens of groups, including unions - even steel workers and coal miners - as well as six of the seven largest utilities, the Nuclear Energy Institute and, tacitly, Wall Street, which will benefit from the creation of a massive new energy-trading market. The majority of environmental groups support the bill, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters, even if some groups feel that the measure is too weak. When Waxman announced the agreement in a press conference Wednesday, about 30 supporters wearing T shirts and carrying placards that...
...would imagine that such a delicately crafted, Senate-like compromise would stand a good chance in the Senate. A bipartisan climate-change bill failed to overcome a filibuster in the Senate last year by a vote of 54-36, and the Democrats have gained at least seven seats since then. But if it was tough to convince rural House Democrats, winning over Senators from farm states, who carry much more relative power than their House counterparts, will be even harder. And if the House compromise made many prominent groups unhappy, one can only imagine what feelings the sausagemaking...