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U.S. Won't Pass Carbon-Price Law This Year, Reid Says (Update1)
2010-09-08 01:12:34.62 GMT
(Adds Reid comments from the third paragraph.)
By Simon Lomax
Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. won't pass legislation this
year that charges power plants a price for releasing carbon
dioxide and other gases that scientists have linked to climate
change, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said.
"It's a cinch we're not going to get it done this year,"
Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said of the carbon-pricing plan today
at an energy conference in Las Vegas.
Last year, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly
passed cap-and-trade legislation in which power plants, oil
refineries and factories would have bought and sold a declining
number of carbon-dioxide pollution rights. The cap-and-trade
bill, which aimed to cut U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions 17
percent from their 2005 level by 2020, stalled in the Senate.
Reid and other Senate Democrats proposed scaling back the
cap-and-trade proposal to regulate power plants, which produce
roughly a third of U.S. greenhouse gases. The smaller cap-and-
trade bill also failed to win enough support to get a vote in
the Senate before lawmakers left Washington in August for a
month long break.
Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and one of the
authors of the scaled-back plan, said in July it was still
possible the climate-change legislation could be taken up
between elections in November and the start of the next Congress
in January.
Capping 'Good Thing'
While the plan to cap greenhouse gases from just the
electricity sector is a "really good thing" that should become
law in the future, it will have to take a back seat to more
limited energy proposals this year, Reid said.
Democrats may try to pass legislation to boost sales of
vehicles that run on natural gas and spur renovations to make
houses more energy-efficient, Reid said. While the legislation
might have to wait until after U.S. voters go to the polls Nov.
2, "even before the election we should have a run at it," he
said.
Rebates for cars and trucks that run on natural gas and
energy-saving upgrades in U.S. homes were included in energy
legislation Reid released in July to respond to the BP Plc oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The legislation, which would also overhaul offshore oil and
natural gas drilling rules, was opposed by Republicans and some
Democrats and didn't get a vote before lawmakers left Washington
in August. Reid said today he may separate the vehicle and home-
renovation incentives from the offshore drilling legislation to
give them a better chance of passing the Senate.
For Related News and Information:
Top environment stories: GREEN <GO>
Stories about U.S. and climate: TNI US CLIMATE <GO>
Global emissions data: EMIS <GO>
Northeast U.S. trading: RGGI <GO>
--Editors: Clyde Russell, John Viljoen.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Simon Lomax in Washington D.C. at +1-202-654-4305 or
slomax@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Charles Siler at +1-415-617-7202 or
csiler@bloomberg.net
