Op-Ed

Expect a surprise cap-and-trade vote in the Senate

Elizabeth Letchworth Former U.S. Senate Secretary
Font Size:

This week in the Senate may prove to be a big week for the cap-and-trade issue even though most Hill watchers will see the Senate debating the highly publicized financial reform bill. Ever since Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pulled his support and co-sponsorship in late April of the soon to be unveiled cap-and-trade bill by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Kerry (D-Mass), most believed the prospects for this issue coming up in the Senate this year were severely jeopardized by the senator’s withdrawal. If you add to that, the recent and very tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, that disaster would seem to serve to further put at risk the scheduling of any bill in the Senate this year. Finally, in a May 5, 2010 CBO report, the Congressional Budget office reported that capping and reducing U.S. greenhouse gases would result in large decline of employment, specifically saying the coal industry would suffer a decline between 10 percent to 18 percent by 2015. Combining all of these factors together, most logical people would bet that the issue was completely dead this year. However, actions this week in the Senate might just prove that assumption wrong.

Staff is working to get together an agreement for a very important vote in the Senate on the cap-and-trade issue before the scheduled Memorial Day recess, which is slated to begin May 28, 2010.

The way it works is this. Back on the Dec. 15, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency issued rule regarding the dangers and health hazards of greenhouse gases. This agency over reach caused Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to introduce a resolution to disapprove this agency action under the Congressional Review Act (PL 104-121) This law permits Congress to review and disapprove any federal agency rule by means of a fast-track legislative process. Under the law, a Senator needs to introduce a resolution of disapproval within a certain period of time, gather a minimum number of signatures to force the resolution out of committee and then the joint resolution become available for Senate consideration. As of this writing, Sen. Murkowski has complied with all of the steps needed for a vote in the Senate. She has 40 co-sponsors including Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). Sen. Murkowski mentioned in her Senate floor statement back in Jan., 2010 that she believes that the new rule from the EPA will hurt our economy, saying that specifically businesses will cut jobs, housing will become more expensive and all goods will be less affordable as a result of this EPA rule. Some of these assertions made back in January by Sen. Murkowski are now echoed in the CBO report from May 5, 2010.

Since the senator has fulfilled all of the requirements, the Senate Leadership has no choice but to schedule the debate and the vote. Under the law, the measure receives up to 10 hours of debate and amendments are not permitted. A majority vote is required for passage of the disapproval resolution. An identical resolution has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). Rep. Barton’s House Joint resolution has garnered 115 co-sponsors. If the Senate and House were to be successful in adopting this resolution, it would land on the president’s desk for his signature or veto. The constitutional veto timelines then apply including the congressional vote requirements.

Notwithstanding these carefully choreographed steps, the cap-and-trade disapproval measure still has many stages remaining in this journey that might lead to the president having to take a stand. However, a big first step will occur in the next couple of weeks in the U.S. Senate. Who would have ever imagined that cap-and-trade would receive such a high level, well-defined vote in the United States Senate, in this election year? To that end, this writer was in the Senate during the debate and passage of the original Congressional Review act back in 1996. The EPA rule issued back in December is a perfect example of why the creators of the Congressional Review Act designed the fast-track disapproval process. They specifically wanted to give Congress a voice when agency regulators and bureaucrats over reach.

Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a retired, four-times-elected United States Senate secretary for the Majority and Minority. She is the founder of GradeGov.com.


PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel