Late last Friday night the House passed the Waxman/Markey climate change measure, as amended by the 40 page manager's amendment filed at 3 a.m. the same day, leading to extremely contentious debate on the House floor and a 61 minute long detailed review of the managers amendment by Minority Leader John Boehner which ran an hour over the debate limit set by the House Rules Committee. House tradition permits the minority leader and majority leaders to close the debate with remarks unlimited by the time rules regarding any bill.
There were 44 Democrats voting against the bill, and the 2 vote margin of passage was procured only by the first floor appearance of Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island since he checked into rehab, a last minute vote switch by Lloyd Doggett of Texas who announced at the beginning of the day that he would vote against the bill, and finally the yes vote of Alan Grayson of Florida, who was persuaded by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's promise of $50 million from the funds raised by the measure to fund a National Hurricane Research Center in Grayson's Florida congressional district. Defending the Waxman - Grayson deal, which was brokered openly on the House floor during the four hours of debate, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel said "Deals are a means of bringing people together and coming up with a better bill."
Such are the workings of our federal government.
On the other side of the Capitol Rotunda, there are six different Senate committees with jurisdiction over climate change legislation. Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer says her committee will finish marking up the Senate version of climate change legislation by the end of July, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid does not expect toe other five committees to finish work on the bill before September 18, which would mean the climate change issue will not likely reach the Senate floor until October at the earliest. Look for many more months of deal making and horse trading before a final bill emerges from the conference committee.
There were 44 Democrats voting against the bill, and the 2 vote margin of passage was procured only by the first floor appearance of Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island since he checked into rehab, a last minute vote switch by Lloyd Doggett of Texas who announced at the beginning of the day that he would vote against the bill, and finally the yes vote of Alan Grayson of Florida, who was persuaded by Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman's promise of $50 million from the funds raised by the measure to fund a National Hurricane Research Center in Grayson's Florida congressional district. Defending the Waxman - Grayson deal, which was brokered openly on the House floor during the four hours of debate, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel said "Deals are a means of bringing people together and coming up with a better bill."
Such are the workings of our federal government.
On the other side of the Capitol Rotunda, there are six different Senate committees with jurisdiction over climate change legislation. Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer says her committee will finish marking up the Senate version of climate change legislation by the end of July, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid does not expect toe other five committees to finish work on the bill before September 18, which would mean the climate change issue will not likely reach the Senate floor until October at the earliest. Look for many more months of deal making and horse trading before a final bill emerges from the conference committee.
