US Senate Democrats on Thursday pushed through a sweeping climate change bill, maneuvering an end-run around opposition Republicans who continued their boycott of deliberations. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the legislation by a vote of 11 to one, with the seven Republicans on the committee absent from the discussion and vote.
The panel is among five other Senate committees which also will weigh in with their draft bills on slowing the pace of climate change before a bill receives a vote in the full chamber, possibly next year. "We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott we have been able to move this bill forward," said committee chair Democrat Barbara Boxer, after the vote.
Republicans, who boycotted the deliberations for three consecutive days, said they would oppose the bill until they had a "comprehensive analysis" of the economic impact of the legislation from the federal watchdog agency, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). But Boxer said further analysis by the agency was not necessary, and maintained that the EPA's environmental impact assessment of a similar bill approved in June by the House of Representatives, was sufficient. "We found that, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans' demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars," she said.
Committee rules require the presence of at least two members of the minority party but Boxer sidestepped the boycott using parliamentary procedures that allowed her to pass the bill by a simple majority of members present, a tactic Republicans decried as a "nuclear option."
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