Articles by Brian Beutler

Sanders gets smacked down

Sanders' amendment -- Sanders #3 -- would have required CCS-equipped plants to sequester at least 85 percent of their pollution in order to be eligible for additional free allowances. That's what the bill used to mandate, before it was changed earlier this month. Sanders tried to change it back and was voted down with 13 "nays," including one from his usual ally Barbara Boxer.

Sanders' support of this bill may be irrelevant to its passage through committee. But if snubs like this aren't enough to convince him to continue to oppose Lieberman-Warner, it will be a sign that deep greens have lost all support in the Senate.

Today’s takeaway: Modest improvements only

Two amendments introduced by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) -- allowing seaside states to use their pollution allowances to respond to the coastal impacts of climate change -- passed.

But before that, Sen. Carper withdrew an amendment to give away allowances "based on output of electricity instead of historical emissions." And so the meaty amendments disappear.

The problem with 150 amendments

The Senate convened today at noon, and Republicans raised a stink about it. Why so late? Important business to attend to!

It had to do with the 150 amendments that EPW committee Republicans brought with them to the markup hearing. The long and short of it is that, by Senate rules, any senator can object to the continuance of any committee meetings that continue beyond the first four hours that the Senate is in session.

If the committee meeting and the floor session had, as usual, started close to the same time, the markup might have ended at 1 pm. This buys them two-and-a-half additional hours at least -- a helpful gesture from the Senate leader in the face of this sort of obstructionism. His floor statement and an unofficial transcript of this morning's proceedings are reprinted below the fold:

Back online

Okay, the committee website picked the feed back. It can be accessed here.

In the intervening hour or so, a Cardin amendment -- to fund federal agencies involved in L-W enforcement with money raised from the auction -- passed.

So did an amendment offered by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) to create a bonus system for renewable energy modeled on the bill's existing bonus system for carbon capture, and a Lautenberg amendment offering to authorize the National Academy of Sciences to study GHG emissions associated with flying.

All Republican-offered amendments since my previous post have failed.