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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (14513)	10/30/2003 4:16:01 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793905

I knew this bill would lose. I hoped it would lose by a bigger percentage. I suspect that some who were against it took a "free ride" to vote for it knowing it would lose. ______________________________________________________ October 30, 2003 Senate Rejects Attempt to Curb Industrial Emissions By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- The Senate rejected a plan Thursday to curb carbon dioxide emissions from industrial smokestacks as a source of global warming. It was the chamber's first vote in more than six years on the controversial issue of climate change. The 55-43 vote against the measure co-sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., capped a two-day debate that the two senators described as the opening shot in what they acknowledged will be a lengthy effort to get Congress to address global warming. Their bill would have required industrial plants -- but not motor vehicles -- to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to 2000 levels by 2010. The Bush administration said the bill would seriously harm the economy. "Let's get real here: this is a very minimal proposal that should be a first step," McCain told the Senate, showing pictures of Arctic Sea ice loss and melting at Glacier National Park. "But we have to start somewhere. We will be back, because these pictures will continue to get worse and won't improve until we begin to address this issue." A senator who is a former astronaut recalled during debate Thursday the "blue-and-white awe" of earth's atmosphere, a view that "made me want to be a better steward of this planet." Sen. Bill Nelson called for an end to "putting our heads in the sand" with current U.S. climate policy. "The earth from space looks so beautiful, and yet so fragile," said Nelson, a Florida Democrat who flew on space shuttle Columbia in 1986. "When we face a major change in climate," he said, "it is going to have devastating effects on the ecological balance of the earth." Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said, however, there was no need to introduce a "massive new regulatory process" for industrial carbon dioxide. "It is not a pollutant," he said. "It does not represent a direct threat to public health." Proponents say addressing global warming will in the long run help the economy, but the White House said it strongly opposed the bill because it would require "deep and immediate cuts in fossil fuel use" to meet an "arbitrary" goal, and drive up household energy bills and gas pump prices. "These increases in energy prices would effectively operate as a tax on American consumers and would have a severe negative impact on job creation," the White House said in a statement. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., told senators the bill would cripple the U.S. economy. "Now is not the time to place more burden on our families and our communities," he said. McCain, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, forced the debate and vote to the Senate floor by promising he wouldn't block a major energy bill that has been stalled in Congress. "This is a big battle, but we'll win over time," McCain said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. "Because climate change is real. And we will overcome the influence of the special interests over time." It was the first such vote since the Senate voted 95-0 in 1997 to reject many of the principles behind an international climate treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan. The treaty was signed later that year by Vice President Al Gore but the Senate never ratified it. One of Bush's first environmental decisions after taking office in 2001 was to withdraw from the treaty and reverse a campaign pledge to regulate industrial carbon dioxide emissions. The treaty has not yet been implemented because not enough countries have ratified it. The McCain-Lieberman bill would have imposed a nationwide cap on industrial emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that many scientists say are causing the Earth to warm up. The bill would let companies trade so-called pollution rights to cover plants that exceed their limits, and would limit global warming pollution by 2010 to the level it was in 2000. American Electric Power Co., the nation's largest electricity generating company, was neutral on the bill, partly because the company's carbon dioxide emissions already fall below the cap the bill would impose, said Dale Heydlauff, a senior vice president of environmental affairs of the Columbus, Ohio-based utility. Heydlauff said the bill offered a "reasonable control program" for emissions at a time when AEP believes human-caused global warming is a real problem. Lieberman said the bill would affect utilities, refineries and commercial transportation, but not auto manufacturers, farms or residences. nytimes.com

To: MulhollandDrive who wrote (14513)	10/30/2003 4:56:58 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 793905

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that chip maker Intel, among others, is pushing Congress to lift the cap on H-1B visas, which allow citizens of other nations to live and work in the United States. With so many American engineers and technologists out of work, you'd imagine more political sensitivity among U.S. companies. But given the industry's accelerating move to send work overseas -- and take advantage of the lower wages paid in places like India and China -- one more insult to domestic labor seems almost logical. siliconvalley.com This is the same Intel which has layed off thousands of US workers and hired double that offshore in the last 3 years. The reason they want more visas is because the offshore teams are not as good as the US-based teams, and in order to facilitate their offshore model, they need some in-house "liasons" to get the job done. Can I prove this- no, but I know it to be true. I suggest the republicans stay away from this hot potato.