{"id":543489,"date":"2010-04-26T14:57:13","date_gmt":"2010-04-26T18:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenrightnow.com\/?p=11096"},"modified":"2010-04-26T14:57:13","modified_gmt":"2010-04-26T18:57:13","slug":"graham%e2%80%99s-unhappiness-stalls-climate-change-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/543489","title":{"rendered":"Graham\u2019s unhappiness stalls climate change bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Green Right Now Reports<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Senator<\/p>\n

Senator Lindsey Graham. Image: lgraham.senate.gov<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A climate change bill already under fire from environmentalists will not be introduced Monday and may not be unveiled any time soon after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham<\/a> of South Carolina abandoned talks over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Graham had been working with Senators John Kerry<\/a> (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman<\/a> (I-Conn.) on the legislation, but announced on Saturday that he was leaving the effort because of Democratic intentions to prioritize the push for an immigration reform package, a move he described as a “cynical ploy” designed to curry favor with Hispanic voters.<\/p>\n

According to Lieberman, Graham is open to returning to the cause, but his future involvement seems tied to the position the immigration talks will be given on the overall agenda.<\/p>\n

“Lindsey couldn’t have been stronger this morning about his commitment to going forward on this bill,” Lieberman said on Sunday. “But he needs it to be separated from immigration reform because he thinks that’s necessary if we’re going to have a real chance to get it adopted.”<\/p>\n

Until now, Graham has been the only major Republican working with the White House on the thorny climate change issue. In recent days, he reportedly became unhappy when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) discussed moving a debate on comprehensive immigration reform ahead of the environmental legislation deliberations. (Reid has been accused of making this change to shore up support from Hispanics<\/a> as he faces a re-election campaign in Nevada.)<\/p>\n

Even before the immigration talks became an issue, Graham was feeling heat from his own party for participating in climate and energy legislation. A March Gallup poll revealed that the percentage of conservatives who believe climate change is real had declined from 50 percent in 2008 to 30 percent this year.<\/p>\n

After Graham’s announcement, Kerry and Lieberman postponed a scheduled Monday news conference and did not offer a new date. The two pledged to continue working on the issue and expressed hope Graham would rejoin them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Green Right Now Reports Senator Lindsey Graham. Image: lgraham.senate.gov A climate change bill already under fire from environmentalists will not be introduced Monday and may not be unveiled any time soon after Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina abandoned talks over the weekend. Graham had been working with Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543489","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}