by Randy Rieland. Senate Democrats get a little of their groove back today when a replacement for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (W. Va.) is sworn in. But don’t expect him to bail them out on climate change. I’m a coal man: Carte Goodwin, a 36-year-old attorney, is being seen as a savior for the Dems in terms of enabling them to finally pass an extension of unemployment benefits, but he’s already identified himself as a lost cause when it comes to any kind of cap on greenhouse-gas emissions . No surprise there since a) West Virginia is Shangri-la for Big Coal, as reflected in the devotion of the state’s other Democratic senator, Jay Rockefeller, to the concept of “clean coal,” and b) the guy who appointed Goodwin, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin (D), said he wasn’t interested in anyone who liked an emissions cap. Byrd was by no means a slam-dunk yes on a strong climate bill, though in recent years he seemed to be leaning toward setting a price for carbon emissions. Goodwin is a slam-dunk no on any bill with a cap. Cap dance: Not that it may matter. The current thinking around Capitol Hill is that the ship has sailed on even a utilities-only cap , let alone one across all industries (that ship has sunk). Bradford Plumer, in The Vine blog for The New Republic , sums up where things stand: If you added all this up, would an energy bill without a cap on carbon still be worthwhile? Would it be enough to help us avert a planetary catastrophe?
Posted by admin on 07 20th, 2010 | no responses
New W.Va. senator won’t help climate bill—and maybe nothing else will either
Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment
