House Energy and Commerce chair, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), says he now has the votes necessary to move his climate change legislation out of committee next week. It has faced stiff opposition from–surprise!–industry, Republicans, and Blue Dog Democrats, and, after a momentous roll out, Waxman was ultimately forced to delay action on the bill for more than a week.
Now, thanks to a series of significant concessions, he says he’s confident it will move forward after the committee holds a series of hearings starting this week. According to Roll Call, “Waxman had to compromise with Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) on one of his key goals –the overall level of carbon reductions by 2020.”
Waxman had wanted a 20 percent cut; Boucher has worried such a steep cut would outpace the development of new technologies like carbon capture from coal-fired power plants. They settled on a 17 percent cut instead.
Waxman also agreed to give utilities free initial allocations on nearly all of their emissions. Boucher had sought to give utilities the credits to avoid rate hikes for consumers.
The Energy Committee chairman added that details have not yet been worked out on all of the allocations, including those for refineries, but said he expected that they would be reached quickly.
