Photo: Harry ReidWith hopes for a comprehensive climate bill dead, the latest question for climate-watchers is whether or not Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid will offer a vote on Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s (D-W.Va.) amendment to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases for two years. Without a carbon pricing scheme or even a renewable electricity standard, the EPA is the only remaining avenue to restrict carbon emissions. The agency has drafted a slew of new regulations that would begin in January, but Republican senators and some moderate Democrats who fear the economic effects of unwieldy new restrictions have mounted a campaign to halt or stall these rules.
President Obama came out against Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s bid to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases altogether, and a White House official said on Friday that the president would veto legislation that included Rockefeller’s two-year delay. Reid is in a tricky position because in order to convince moderate Dems to vote against Murkowski’s measure, he promised them a later vote on Rockefeller’s watered down version. But now, with the White House firmly opposed... Read more
