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To: no1coalking who wrote (1475)	11/1/2007 10:41:42 AM
From: no1coalking	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2774

CLIMATE: Dingell, Boucher say cap-and-trade bill stuck behind energy (11/01/2007) Darren Samuelsohn, E&E Daily senior reporter Significant global warming legislation in the House will remain in limbo until congressional negotiators finish their work on a broad energy bill, a pair of top House Democrats said yesterday. In separate interviews, Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.) said they are focused on House-Senate conference talks on energy and have not had time to focus on a bill that would establish mandatory greenhouse gas emissions limits for U.S. industry. "We will go back to working on global warming and other things as soon as we can, after we have completed this," said Dingell, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "We have limited staff." Boucher, chairman of the House Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, offered a similar assessment. "We didn't anticipate this conference starting this late," he said. "We didn't anticipate it moving as slowly as it has. None of this is foreseen. We could have easily produced our bill by now and had it marked up. But the hand we're dealt with is we have a conference we have to attend to. It is taking a long time." Earlier this summer, Boucher had vowed to draft and mark up a bill in the fall to set an economy-wide mandatory limit on greenhouse gas emissions, most likely with a cap-and-trade program. "That was our original hope," he said yesterday. But with the energy talks moving forward at a slow pace, Boucher said his strategy for moving a climate bill through the Energy and Commerce Committee is now in flux. "Let's just say that we'll be very active on this front next year," he said. "I'm not going to peg a time when the draft will be introduced. We'll be very active also later this year if time permits in drafting and introducing a bill. I'm sorry I can't be more precise given the uncertainty of the conference." Both Dingell and Boucher explained that they will continue with their current strategy of releasing a series of "white papers" that sort through many of the technical details of the climate debate. Their first paper, released last month, committed the congressmen to reduce U.S. emissions between 60 percent and 80 percent by 2050, suggesting an upper limit that squares with recommendations from many top climate scientists. Additional papers are in the works on the methodology and scope of a cap-and-trade plan, as well as how to deal with emissions from fast-developing economies in China and India and the legal liability tied to the capture and underground storage of carbon dioxide. Boucher said he wasn't prepared to offer a firm date for the next paper's release because the same staff are working on the energy conference. The slower pace of House action on climate change stands in contrast to the Senate, where an Environment and Public Works subcommittee plans to mark up a cap-and-trade bill today sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.). Dingell and Boucher have a good opportunity to see how one half of Capitol Hill addresses the climate debate, Warner said on Tuesday. "They remind me of a couple of guys looking up out of the trench through a fieldglass seeing what kind of warfare is going to take place over here," Warner said. "They want to make a judgement on what sells, what doesn't sell, what you've got to achieve." Boucher declined comment on the details of the Lieberman-Warner bill. But he also acknowledged the Senate's efforts would be useful for his panel. "It is instructive for us to observe the reaction to the bill that was introduced in the Senate." Told of Warner's assessment, Dingell replied, "I'm not sure that's how I view the world." Looking ahead, Boucher said he still thinks the House and Senate can pass climate legislation before the end of the 110th Congress. And he insisted that top Bush administration officials have given him every reason to think the president would sign a mandatory cap-and-trade bill into law. "They're not going to tell you anything other than what they're saying publicly," Boucher said. "But the private conversations have been very constructive, and the door has not been closed to any methodology. The key is it has to be bipartisan, supported by industry and not do harm to the economy. If we can't produce a bill like that, then I'm not going to vote for it either."