Senators Joseph I. Lieberman (ID-CT) and John W. Warner (R-VA) have unveiled a detailed proposal for the climate bill that they will introduce this fall, America’s Climate Security Act.
Lieberman and Warner, who are the chairman and ranking Member, respectively, of the Senate Subcommittee on Private Sector and Consumer Solutions to Global Warming and Wildlife Protection, requested comment on the 15-page document from Senate colleagues and all interested stakeholders. They reiterated their plan to introduce a bill based on their proposal, and to bring that bill to a vote in their subcommittee, after the August recess.
"The ball is really rolling now," said Lieberman. "We have the bipartisan momentum to ensure that, this fall, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will report a strong, mandatory climate bill to the full Senate for the first time in US history."
"In my 28 years in the Senate, I have focused above all on issues of national security, and I see the problem of global climate change as fitting squarely within that focus," said Warner. "In hearings before the Environment and Public Works Committee, and in meetings with the private sector, I have come to appreciate the challenges our nation faces in addressing this complex issue. In going through this process, I have also come to believe that the time for the Legislative Branch to act is now. In working with Senator Lieberman, my goal has been jointly to produce a draft outline by this week that has enough detail to provide interested parties with an idea of the direction in which we are headed. This bipartisan proposal meets that goal, and we look forward to input from our colleagues and interested parties."
The document spells out a mandatory, market-based cap-and-trade program that would cover 80 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions and that would reduce those emissions to current levels by 2012, to 10 percent below current levels by 2020, and to 70 percent below current levels by 2050. The document describes a robust set of measures to sustain US economic growth, create American green jobs, and ensure international participation in emissions reductions.
On June 27, Lieberman and Warner announced that they had begun drawing upon existing proposals and new ideas to draft a comprehensive bill to address global climate change.
For more information about the bill, see the following site:
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