Senate Climate Bill May Not Even Hit Copenhagen's Weak Targets - Reuters

[hatrack]

(Reuters) - A scaled-back climate change bill Senate Democrats are considering would achieve far less than President Barack Obama promised at a U.N. global warming conference last year -- but even this may be too much for Congress.

With little time left in a short, crowded legislative schedule this year, Senate Democratic leaders are weighing a final attempt to begin reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Instead of the kind of economy-wide scheme the House of Representatives approved last year, senators are trying to rally support for a narrower plan that would set pollution caps only on the electric power sector -- covering about one-third of the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

It would do so by allowing an ever-dwindling number of pollution permits to be traded. By signing onto the Copenhagen Accord last December, the United States accepted the goal of cutting 2005 domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020. This required congressional action -- extremely difficult with an ailing economy in an election year when opponents argue the measure would raise consumer prices.

EDIT

http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-50164720100715

[villager]

1. Of course not. We don't have the permission of our corporate overlords

...to actually do anything substantive, or, you know, in time, about it...

[joshcryer]

2. Yeah. My biggest fear is that it won't have new efficiency standards.

They're really the only real way to reduce our emissions dramatically.