McCaskill: House Climate Bill Won't Pass The Senate

The climate change bill that squeaked through the House just before recess doesn't have a chance in the Senate, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said Tuesday.

"If there is going to be enough support for the bill, it will be a very gradual implementation as we move toward changing to wind and solar and other kinds of energy," McCaskill told conservative Missouri talk radio host Mike Ferguson. "I'm going to be one of those trying to craft it in a way that is very gradual, that is not going to hurt a state like Missouri that is so coal dependent."

McCaskill cast herself as an emissary of bipartisan compromise on climate change, but acknowledged that Democratic leadership's urgency on the issue is a function of dire warnings from the scientific community and a desire to set an example for the year-end climate change summit in Denmark.

She said she's in no rush to take the lead on a cap-and-trade approach, given what she sees as less-than-satisfactory action by other global powers. "We need to be a leader in the world but we don't want to be a sucker. And if we go too far with this, all we're going to do is chase more jobs to China and India, where they've been putting up coal-fired plants every 10 minutes," she said.

Her solution for Missouri's coal-driven energy supply, she said, would be a decade-long shift toward sequestered coal or other unnamed sources of energy.

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Comments

[CelticMajic]

If this deeply flawed bill became law, it would impoverish millions in our nation and be an anchor on an economy that certainly needs no anchor and for what? But then I am a heretic and the zealots of the GW or GCC religion will....we­ll just look at the vast majority of posts...

[alvdh1]

Let's have some facts and figures to support your claims instead of the same tired, old talking points of fear used by your denial bunch. The sky is falling, the sky is falling, run for the hills. Time and time again you and your ilk come on this site to post fear mongering. How about some facts and nothing but the facts.

[JulieSA]

How about the AGW crowd stop fear-mongering and slandering people who disagree with them?

[guinganbresil]

Why is it that the opposition always has to prove point by point the bill is bad, but the advocates don't even have read the damn thing.

This new trend of ramming through billion or trillion dollar legislation without deliberation is irresponsible governance, and constitutes TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION (if my representative didn't have time to consider the bill before voting, I am NOT represented, regardless of party or vote!)

[anandakos]

(continued--see post above or below depending where the process puts this one)

There are only two sources of energy which will provide humanity a future: star-sized thermonuclear (e.g. solar and wind) and gravitational (tidal). That's it. Todos. And since our stock of fossil fuels can be used to produce so VERY many valuable things, doesn't it make sense to power our civilization by the renewables?

How can you call yourselves "conservative" when in fact you advocate mindlessly consuming the patrimony of the Earth? You should call yourselves "consumptives". That's it: you're the TOB (Tubercular Old Party).

[anandakos]

TOP

[alvdh1]

I am from Missouri and I voted for her. I hope when she is up for re-election another qualified Democrat, who cars about the environment, runs against her. She is another Diane Feinstien. A Republican who is masquerading as a Democrat. She has demonstrated time and again that her corporate funders and not the people who elected her are more important. Potecting coporate profits is issue number one with her.

[frmme2u]

The Senator continually "Casts" herself as something she is not. Things like progressive.

[vippy]

This bill is just another excuse to tax us more. Wake up people. We have to do something about the population problem, we are expecting 9 billion over the current 6 billion. That means less farmland but more people to feed. I learned in school some 60 years ago that the sun is getting closer to earth
and we eventually burn up. This bill cannot stop it. Even the bible quotes the end will be FIRE for those who believe in the bible. So why this nonsense. Let us clean up our garbage, like the massive
plastic accumulation in the ocean.

[AtlasV]

wow. WOOOOOWWWWW.

[anandakos]

Vippy,

The sun is very slowly -- very, very, very, very slowly -- getting hotter as carbon to iron fusion in the center slowly grows in intensity. Again, very, very, very, very slowly grows in intensity. We're talking millions of years.

Eventually the carbon to iron fusion will get strong enough that the outer envelop of the sun will quickly expand to make it a red giant. That is when "the sun (will get) closer to the earth". In fact the outer boundary of the incandescent portion of the sun should actually encompass the earth. But long before that the radiation from the incrementally hotter sun will have boiled away the oceans and atmosphere. I understand that is due sometime between 200 and 300 million years from now.

And yes, you're absolutely right we have no control whatsoever over the process.

But it also has nothing to do with the current warming of the earth, which is caused (mostly) by an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

[allincompassing]

Claire McCaskill's two largest contributors are #1 Emily's List (Emily Malcolm heir to Koch Industries) and #2 Bryan Cave LLP(Attorney for Koch Carbon LLC)


Koch Carbon LLC, KOMSA, Reiss Coal,
and Reiss Viking, subsidiaries of
Koch Industries, Inc., are world leaders
in the trading, marketing and terminalling
of petroleum coke, coal, salt, slag, cement,
clinker, ocean freight, magnetite and
other related commodities. Trading,
handling and transporting more than 20
mm tons of coal annually, we provide
worldwide coverage for a wide variety of products.
Contact us regarding your product needs

Claire McCaskill bought and paid for! Total Price=$ 2,987,357.­00 Million dollars in 2008 alone.

On the contrary..­......

Mr. Gore replied that he has reinvested “every penny” he has made from his renewable energy holdings — as well as from his book and movie efforts — into the non-profit he chairs, the Alliance for Climate Protection.

“Congresswoman, if you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed,” Mr. Gore said, “you don’t know me.”

[maggienash65]

I find it humorous reading about these people. Where were they when our jobs were being sent to other countries? Why not come up with a real plan about getting jobs out there and putting people to work instead of arguing that this can't be past for this reason and that cant be past for another reason?
Instead of the lobbyist and big money companies make a decision for you, earn the money people are paying you for to help the people in this country and not yourselves.

[vie2012ne]

Thank God for clear-thinking reasonable people like Sen McCaskill. She's smart enough to know that US policy cannot be driven by fear and ignorance stoked by the AGW crowd.

[alvdh1]

No, it is people like McCaskill and yourself who are satisfied with the status quo of destroying the planet for profit. Or more appropriately, clinging to the notion that there is no profit in doing it in a less polluting way. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that you are a free market whinner. Since free energy markets don't exist and never have, why don't you share some of your logic with us in regard to why the electric utility industry gets to operate as a monopoly in 48 states under the guaranteed rate of return (GROI) model. The GROI does not lend itself to competition of choice in power supply. It allows for utilities to dictate the power choices which are often dirty coal and then get a GROI.

The Independent Service Operator (ISO) model used in California and New York has converted utilities into power producers. If small business and residential producers of clean energy were allowed to sell their excess capacity into the grid at market rates, there wouldn't need to be any subsidies for alternative energy and it would become a free market because the ISO owns the grid and purchases power from all producers. It seems though that you and Claire are perfectly happy with having monopolies dictate our energy choices and how we pay for power.

[Pquilson]

and California and New York are doing so well?

[nuttybutty]

senator mccaskill, it's not china or india that have sucked off our well paying American jobs. it's lawmakers like you in the pockets of big business that let those jobs go over to those countries!

if you want those jobs back, start by passing this bill so that America can build on a new economic foundation built on our abundant resources, sun and wind!!

[Pquilson]

Our abundant resources are coal, natural gas, and oil, in addition to sun and wind.
Passing the crap and tax bill will do nothing to "build on a new economic foundation".

[StephenDedalus82]

So make legislation that stops jobs being sent to China!

[mrh3]

Oh, by the way, China is getting ready to eat our luch in green tech developement.

[mrh3]

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Can I Clean Your Clock?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: July 4, 2009
Well, China has gotten on board — big-time. Now I am worried that China will, dare I say, “clean our clock” in E.T.
NY Times 7/5/09

[shockaslim]

China is also an emerging power that is building things. They have the capacity to do so. When you have established yourself in one way for so long, it is hard to get out of it.

[mrh3]

How much co2 is ok? Pick a number.

[Pquilson]

They won't. Such a number does not exist. Neither does a "proper" global temperature. Absent those things, we have no measureable way to determine whether or not climate change legislation if effective aside from increasing the US treasury.

[balthus]

Why do you so desperately want to live in a hotter, dirtier, less ecologically diverse planet than we have now?

[amarti57]

Good. This crazy piece of legislation has no business passing.

[vandegrasse]

Get into your car one day when all the windows have been rolled up for an hour or so. It's gonna be REALLY hot, right? Why. Because of solar heat it should heat up only a very few degrees above the outside ambient temperature. But it's ferociously hot. Because the glass acts exactly as the greenhouse gasses do by keep the heat from being reflected. If you want to live in a closed car kind of world keep on arguing. Some of us want the windows rolled down a bit.

[VikingQuest]

You act like lowering CO2 somehow guarentees us a drop in temps . . .

[vandegrasse]

A logical person would predict such a result. Since the cause of the climate heating is and overabundance of greenhouse gasses, lowering their amount would logically have a tempering effect in the opposite direction. Would you prefer to take a chance and not lower them? It makes no difference to the natural heat balance of the earth whether we lower them or. The mean or median under which mankind thrives is being tinkered with. If the temperatures go up we're expendable, we perish. Life in a different way goes on or perhaps ceases altogether. I merely that is wise to work within our natural range and do as little damage as possible to it. The Earth will go on with or without us.

[MOinkslinger]

Live in MO and I hope Claire votes NO on Cap-n-Trade. This type of legislature is not going to work when you have India and China going on as usual.

[Coastalthinker2]

China is actually working on this issue. See these articles:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05friedman.html?_r=1

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/010037.html

[nuttybutty]

china has 40 years of coal left. you bet they are developing alternative sources of energy.

but what are we doing? still bickering over the "truthiness" of global warming.

maybe they will be the only super-power in the world.

[Seldon]

I wish these Senators would stop saying "This Bill is too bold!", when they think it won't pass. There is nothing wrong with the bill, there is just something wrong with the Senators. It's not the bill that is bold, it is the Senators who are cowards.

[VikingQuest]

So what will this bill to MFG jobs in the USA when other countries don't have the same restrictions?

So what does this bill do to the cost of our energy prices?

This bill does raise the cost for every household in America . . . last I checked, Obama said no tax increases for people making less than $250k

[mrh3]

Those jobs are leaving for lower wages. Nothing will stop that but higher transportation costs to ship goods helps a little.

[nuttybutty]

here's how you get the manufacturing jobs back to the US.

pass this bill, fund alternative energy development, that will spur growth in manufacturing industries that produce wind turbines, solar panels, bio-fuel reactors, nuclear power plants, etc... i know this can be done by the US because of the quality of craftmanship i see in tools made in the US vs. made in china. i never buy tools made in china, no matter how cheap.

stop lamenting about the jobs lost. they are gone, and won't come back. start thinking about the future. this bill is our best chance to get those jobs back.

[TiredandPragmatic]

It may raise prices, but it's not a tax. The carbon tax idea was thrown out the window, and even it was not an increase in INCOME taxes, but a tax on carbon emissions from industries.