Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Democrats say climate bill won't pass this year

We've been hearing that climate-bill negotiations will be put off until 2010, and finally Senate Democrats have acknowledged no bill will pass this year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that climate legislation will be taken up "sometime in the spring," Ian Talley of The Wall Street Journal reports. Following the Democratic caucus meeting, party leaders said health care, overhaul of financial markets and job creation would take precedence.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain called the news "just a matter of reality; they can't get anything done at this time." McCain has previously supported climate legislation, but told Talley he would not support the current bill due to its handling of nuclear energy. A White House spokesperson said President Obama was still working with lawmakers to move the legislation as quickly as possible, and Talley reports the president plans to move ahead with a plan for the Environmental Protection Agency to declare greenhouse gases a threat to public health.

"Democrats looking ahead to the 2010 midterm elections are concerned about a backlash from voters in industrial and heartland states dependent on coal," Talley writes. Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill added, "It's really big, really, really hard, and is going to make a lot of people mad." (Read more)

1 comment:

Mike Bates said...

I don't see what the big hold up is they should have already passed the damn Health Care Bill these people are out of control and need to get a life lesson of how other people are depending on having some type of hope for a better health care system America is so jacked up I swear.