Congress: Cap-n-trade passes cmte
Posted: Friday, May 22, 2009 9:28 AM by Mark Murray
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Congress
Politico: "After a one-two punch from Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney, House Minority Leader John Boehner and other Republican lawmakers worry that their party has overplayed its hand on Nancy Pelosi. The Republicans’ fear: Gingrich’s call for Pelosi’s ouster has set an unattainable goal, and Cheney’s jabs at her during a speech Thursday will allow Democrats to portray the controversy as a partisan attack by one of the GOP’s most polarizing figures. ‘If the story becomes about us and not her, it’s a problem for us,’ said a senior Republican lawmaker.”
“A bill to create the first national limit on greenhouse-gas emissions was approved by a House committee yesterday after a week of late-night debates that cemented the shift of climate change from rhetorical jousting to a subject of serious, if messy, Washington policymaking,” the
Washington Post reports. “The 33 to 25 vote was a major victory for House Democrats, who had softened and jury-rigged the bill to reassure manufacturers and utilities -- and members of their own party from the South and Midwest -- that they would not suffer greatly.”
More: “President Obama supports the bill, an aide said yesterday, though some provisions are weaker than what he advocated during the presidential campaign. In particular, Obama called for all pollution credits to be auctioned off by the government, but the House bill would give away about 85 percent of them. After that shift and a weakening of the bill's demands for new renewable electricity, the environmental group Greenpeace withdrew its support. But many environmental activists have accepted the changes.”
In a conference call with reporters, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger said she was optimistic about Congress's chances of passing the contentious Employee Free Choice Act, a.k.a "card check," NBC's Harry Enten reports. "There needs to be a vote on [the legislation]... I think there is going to be a vote one way or another. I think we are going to pass the Employee Free Choice Act."
