As many of you know, the Obama Administration is pushing for legislature in Congress that will regulate GHG. In fact, President Obama told 34 Democratic members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on May 5 that he would like to see cap-and-trade legislation before the end of this year.
One of the targets in the original proposal from the White House was to reduce GHG to 14% below 2005 emission levels by 2020. The powerful Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Henry Waxman set the target at 20% below 2005 emission levels by 2020 in his own original draft cap-and-trade bill. This was a much more ambitious target than the White House’s. It has been reported that Waxman will be softening his target to 17% as a compromise to attract more Democrats in his committee to vote for it.
There are 59 members (36 Democrats and 23 Republicans) on Waxman’s committee. He needs 30 votes to get any legislation out of the committee. At last count, Waxman has 18 yes votes (all Democrats), 19 maybes (all Democrats plus one Republican) and 22 no votes (all Republicans). He needs to get 12 votes out of the 19 maybes to pass his legislation.
In case you are wondering who is that lone Republican in the “maybe” column. That is Mary Bono Mack – who was married to the late Sony Bono (of Sony and Cher fame).
The firm of Cantor Fitzerald has a website that does an excellent job in tracking the cap-and-trade legislation. This post is based on the report from that website.
