Democrats Unveil Ambitious Global Warming Bill

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/us/politics/01energycnd.html

Democrats Unveil Ambitious Global Warming Bill

By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: March 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — The debate on global warming and energy policy accelerated on Tuesday as two senior House Democrats unveiled a far-reaching bill to cap heat-trapping gases and move the country quickly from dependence on coal and oil.

But the bill leaves crucial questions unanswered and as of now has no Republican support. For those reasons, it marks the beginning, not the end, of debate in the current Congress on how to deal with two of President Obama’s top priorities, climate change and energy.

The draft measure, written by Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, sets a slightly more ambitious goal for capping greenhouse gases than President Obama’s proposal, requiring a reduction in emissions of 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels. President Obama’s plan envisioned a 14 percent reduction by 2020. Both would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming by roughly 80 percent by 2050.

The Waxman-Markey bill, known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, emerges at a time when many Americans, and their representatives, are wary of wide-ranging environmental legislation that could raise energy costs and potentially cripple industry. The bill also comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is about to exert regulatory authority over greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The bill would pre-empt that effort and create a new cap-and-trade scheme to control carbon emissions.

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