Our Senator is in charge of moving this through the Senate, and there are some intricate politics ahead.
Boxer delicately steers Senate's global warming bill
By David Whitney - dwhitney@mcclatchydc.com
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, November 11, 2007
WASHINGTON – Sen. Barbara Boxer, who heads the U.S. Senate committee handling legislation to curb global warming, has called the law California enacted last year the "gold standard."
But the bill taking shape in her committee isn't identical to the package that emerged from the California Legislature.
Here's a primer on the emerging legislation:
Q: Is this Boxer's bill?
A: No. Although the liberal Bay Area Democrat has her own bill patterned on California's landmark law, the law her committee is debating is a bipartisan compromise introduced last month by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and John Warner, R-Va.
Q: How are the state and Senate approaches alike?
A: Both seek to lower emissions from burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. Both use emission releases in 1990 as the benchmark. And both seek emission reductions broadly throughout the economy.
Q: Are their targets the same?
A: Close. The state law caps greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels by 2020, but Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order pledging the state to cut emissions 80 percent by 2050. The Senate bill would require them to be cut by 63 percent by 2050.
Q: What is "cap and trade," and do both the California law and the Senate bill require it?
A: A cap-and-trade system would immediately cap emissions and then steadily lower them to reach reduction goals. Key to the program are emission allocations – basically annual pollution rights given or sold to big industries that would permit them to release a defined amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
