{"id":541689,"date":"2010-04-23T08:26:11","date_gmt":"2010-04-23T12:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/climateprogress.org\/?p=23399"},"modified":"2010-04-23T08:26:11","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T12:26:11","slug":"lugar-and-voinovich-float-%e2%80%9chalf-assed%e2%80%9d-alternative-to-comprehensive-climate-and-clean-energy-jobs-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/541689","title":{"rendered":"Lugar and Voinovich float \u201chalf-assed\u201d alternative to comprehensive climate and clean energy jobs bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"Voinovich and Lugar\" src=\"http:\/\/wonkroom.thinkprogress.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/lugar_voinovich.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"266\" height=\"172\" \/>Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham are working with the White House, environmentalists, and industry to craft <a href=\"http:\/\/wonkroom.thinkprogress.org\/2010\/03\/18\/kerry-graham-lieberman-rumors\/\">comprehensive  climate and clean energy legislation<\/a>, which they plan to unveil on Monday. But Senators Lugar (R-IN) and Voinovich (R-OH), both of whom have admitted the threat of global warming, announced yesterday \u201ca <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cq.com\/document\/display.do?matchId=99014714\">narrower  competing bill<\/a>\u201d that resembles the weak legislation passed out of  the Senate energy committee last year.\u00a0 Brad Johnson has the story in this Wonk Room <a href=\"http:\/\/wonkroom.thinkprogress.org\/2010\/04\/21\/lugar-voinovich-climate\/\">repost<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-23399\"><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>George V. Voinovich  of Ohio and Richard G. Lugar  of  Indiana are developing <strong>an energy-only bill that would mandate  new renewable and nuclear power production without imposing cuts on  carbon emissions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This approach, which has also been floated by energy committee  members Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Sen.  Lisa Murkowksi (R-AK), has been described by Graham as \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/wonkroom.thinkprogress.org\/2010\/02\/03\/graham-half-assed\/\">half-assed<\/a>.\u201d  Voinovich believes that <a href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/82885\/voinovich-and-lugar-ditch-kgl-to-work-on-competing-energy-bill\">subsidy-based  legislation that fails to reduce global warming<\/a> pollution is more  \u201cdoable\u201d than comprehensive reform that pays its own way by putting a  price on carbon pollution:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>I\u2019d like to get something done. But I\u2019m not sure it would  meet the standards of the environmental groups or what Sen. Kerry would  like to get done. <strong>I\u2019d like to do the doable \u2014 move it down the  field while I can<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>More problematically, Voinovich also announced today that climate  legislation \u201cmust include a <a href=\"http:\/\/voinovich.senate.gov\/public\/index.cfm?FuseAction=NewsCenter.PressReleases&amp;ContentRecord_id=2193d84a-ef65-1a87-2216-3c947130ce38\">comprehensive  preemption provision<\/a> that goes well beyond language included in  previous climate bills\u201d to get his support, a poison-pill stance that  would derail the progress made by states across the nation to build a  green economy.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) have been  jockeying for attention with a bill that addresses the other half of  energy reform, a <a href=\"http:\/\/motherjones.com\/blue-marble\/2010\/03\/cantwell-collins-climate-bill\">climate-only  package<\/a> with weak targets  known as the CLEAR Act.<\/p>\n<p>These senators are participating in a complex dance \u2014 if President  Obama and the public throw their weight behind real action, then these  senators can take credit when elements of their bills appear in the  Kerry-Graham-Lieberman legislation. However, if momentum stalls under  the weight of polluter lobbying and Beltway indifference to the climate  crisis, they can instead say they offered a \u201cpragmatic\u201d alternative.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, such political insurance only covers elected  politicians, not people living in the real world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and Graham are working with the White House, environmentalists, and industry to craft comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation, which they plan to unveil on Monday. But Senators Lugar (R-IN) and Voinovich (R-OH), both of whom have admitted the threat of global warming, announced yesterday \u201ca narrower competing bill\u201d that resembles the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6435,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-541689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}