Thursday, April 02, 2009

Senate passes anti-cap and trade amendment

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) succeeded Republican-in-name-only Chuck Hagel in the upper chamber. He's off to a good start. The former governor's anti-cap and trade amendment passed the Senate with a comfortable majority.

After a decisive vote Wednesday, global warming legislation will apparently not advance on such a filibuster-proof path. By a 67-31 tally, the Senate adopted an amendment by Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., against allowing controversial cap-and-trade legislation to pass the Senate with fewer than 60 votes. As important, the vote seemed to reflect considerable Democratic skepticism on climate change legislation generally; 26 Democrats voted for the amendment.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky lauded the move, saying the Senate "slammed the door on using the fast-track process to jam through a new national energy tax."

Unfortunately there still could be some wind in the sails of cap and trade. Support for the energy tax is strong in the House, a conference committee could strip Johann's amendment from the federal budget bill.

Related post:

Obama's "crap and trade" past

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3 comments:

Matthew Mulligan said...

Perhaps this is the long-awaited end of the Obama Honeymoon. One can only hope.

Matthew Mulligan said...

Perhaps this signals the long-awaited end of the Obama Honeymoon. It couldn't get here soon enough.

pathickey said...

It is a beginning - perhaps President Obama will snap out of it and 'get real' as some folks say.

Cap and Trade is idiotic.