What has long been rumored and discussed has been confirmed—the Senate will not take up climate change legislation on the Senate floor until this coming spring, according to the American Agriculturist’s Jacqui Fatka. There are several reasons for the delay, but the biggest reason is certainly that the healthcare debate has all but monopolized the Senate’s attention.The decision by democratic leadership to put the Boxer-Kerry climate change legislation on hold, as far as floor time is concerned, has international implications as well as domestic. Early in December the United Nations Climate Change Conference will begin in Copenhagen. While the Copenhagen meeting was only going to produce “a less ‘politically binding’ agreement that would punt the most difficult issues into the future [,]” the inability of the United States government to develop a domestic plan on how to deal with climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions may let developing nations like China off the hook as far as making any future commitments to reduce GHG emissions.
As this blog has reported, the decision that a final deal on reducing global GHG emissions to combat climate change will not emerge from Copenhagen essentially let’s Congress off the hook for not having a bill to present to world leaders as a sign of the US’s commitment to the issue. Additionally, it means the Obama administration doesn’t have to worry about committing to an international treaty without knowing for certain the Senate would approve such a treaty, as the Constitution so requires.
As Fatka writes, when the Senate does decide to take up the measure there will be some heavy legislative lifting to do. For one, senators from manufacturing states and agrarian states want assurances that their constituents will not be unduly burdened by the legislation. To that end, Fatka reports that Senator Debbi Stabenow (MI) and five other senators introduced “long-awaited legislation that seeks to add an agriculture piece, including an ag offsets program, to the Boxer-Kerry draft. Specifically, the bill would put USDA in charge of agriculture and forestry offset programs, provide incentives to early actors, support other ag and forestry actions that reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and support climate-related research in agriculture, including research on adaptation to changing weather patterns.”
Meanwhile, the American Farm Bureau Federation “welcomed this week’s announcement from senate leadership that it would not address climate legislation until Spring 2010.” In the Farm Bureau’s view, the House bill and the Boxer-Kerry bill both ‘“represent all pain and no gain for our nation and American agriculture and now the Senate has a chance to correct that error,”’ states Farm Bureau press release.
Now there certainly is plenty of time to work on climate change legislation, but we will have to wait and see if spring really does revive this legislative priority.
To read the American Agriculturist article click here.
To read the Stabenow legislation click here.
To visit the Climate Change Conference website click here.
To read the Farm Bureau’s press release on the climate change delay click here.
To read the US Agriculture & Food Law and Policy Blog post on the recent Conference developments, click here.
To read the Farm Bureau’s press release on the climate change delay click here.
To read the US Agriculture & Food Law and Policy Blog post on the recent Conference developments, click here.
Posted: 11/20/09
