Republicans boycott Senate committee markup of cap-and-trade bill

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Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee boycotted the markup of the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill Nov. 3, as committee Chairman Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., told fellow Democrats that the urgency of global warming requires moving forward without the "full" U.S. Environmental Protection Agency modeling of costs minority members have demanded.

"We need to move forward. States and cities are already moving ahead. Already, 32 states from coast to coast are taking part in regional greenhouse gas reduction programs," Boxer said in opening the first day of the markup of S 1733. "We need to act now to ensure that America is the world's leader in clean energy technology. … Reporting the Kerry-Boxer bill out of the Environment and Public Works Committee is an important step in the process."

Boxer said she was extending the deadline for Republicans to submit amendments to the end of the day and had arranged for a special question-and-answer session to take place at 2:30 p.m. ET with an EPA representative on the agency's analysis of the Kerry-Boxer bill.

"Tomorrow, we will be back again to work on this legislation. In the meantime, the door is open. The invitation stands," Boxer said. "We will continue to reach out to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. We hope [Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., ranking member of the committee,] and all the Republicans will join us."

Initially, all seven Republicans on the committee boycotted the markup, citing the Oct. 27 acknowledgement before the committee by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson that the agency has not run full modeling of the economic costs of the Kerry-Boxer bill. Jackson estimated it would take about five weeks to complete a full analysis.

Inhofe has argued that the Kerry-Boxer cap-and-trade bill will be the largest tax increase in America's history. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, has demanded that the EPA perform full modeling runs on the bill, including modeling with what he considers as less optimistic assumptions about how many nuclear power plants actually will be built in the nation over the years covered by the legislation.

About half an hour into the markup, Voinovich appeared in the meeting room and asked to present a statement on behalf of his absent Republican colleagues. He reiterated that Republican members believe the markup should not take place until after the EPA has presented a full economic analysis of the bill for the committee's consideration.

"This is not a ruse to prevent this committee from marking up a climate bill. Rather, this is a genuine attempt to make sure that the members of this committee … have the best information available as we debate and amend the bill that will have consequences for every person in our country," he said.

Noting that he repeatedly had asked EPA to analyze what the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill will mean for jobs and electricity prices in different regions of the country, as well as to provide answers about assumptions made about offsets, technology, and nuclear power and fuel-switching, Voinovich said "time after time, I got nowhere."

After granting Voinovich about 15 minutes to speak, Boxer countered that the EPA's analysis of the Kerry-Boxer bill is adequate. She noted that the agency took five weeks to perform a full analysis on the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, which the House of Representatives passed in June, and then spent an additional two weeks analyzing S 1733, which is similar to the House bill.

Boxer noted that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee already passed its part of the comprehensive climate change bill being crafted in the Senate. "Other committees will move forward as well and do their part." She noted that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he plans to ask EPA do a five-week analysis of the final bill after it has been reported out of the pertinent committees but before he brings it to the Senate floor for debate.

The committee recessed to go to a joint session of Congress at which German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged U.S. lawmakers to act quickly to address the issue of global warming. In a speech covering a range of international security issues, Merkel exhorted nations around the world to take bold action aimed at reaching an agreement to fight global warming at the talks slated to take place in Copenhagen in December.

Following Merkel's speech, Democrats returned to the markup, where Republicans remained glaringly absent. "I guess at this point I'm going to just sit here and wait until they show up and then we'll recess until this afternoon at 2:30 when we will have the EPA here," Boxer said at the conclusion of the morning markup session.

"I, for one, am looking forward to the opportunity to welcome my Republican friends into the room. They complained about the EPA analysis; this is their time to ask any and all questions they might have," Boxer said. "I will just sit here for a bit." Before finally recessing at around 12:20 p.m., Boxer spent nearly 10 minutes in silence in the meeting room doing paperwork.

Republican committee members did not attend the briefing session by an EPA official who answered questions posed by Democrats on the kinds of analysis the agency performed on the Waxman-Markey and Kerry-Boxer bills.

Boxer argued that Republicans should have taken advantage of the opportunity to "look EPA in the eye and quiz them" on their analysis. "Commonsense says to me this is a stall tactic," she concluded.