Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid confirmed Tuesday that the Senate will soon debate a bill to reduce pollution and that the legislation will include a scaled back version House-passed language to reduce carbon output by charging some polluters for emissions above a certain threshold.

Reid said that the bill is still in “rough draft form,” but he gave an outline of what he plans to introduce in the Senate two weeks from now.

Specifically, he said the bill will address four issues key to reforming the energy sector in the United States: responding to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; promoting clean energy and job creation; limiting consumer prices for energy; and reducing energy consumption.

The Dis-honorable Harry Reid

Reid said the bill will only aim to cut pollution from energy utilities and power plants, and not from transportation, agriculture or other pollution-emitting sectors of the American economy. Although the House has passed a bill to cap carbon emissions across the entire American economy, Senate Democrats agree that such an aggressive approach would be difficult to pass.

For the past several weeks, the majority leader has been working to combine the elements of three different Democratic approaches for energy reform and climate change legislation, including a bill from Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman that would cap carbon emissions in the utility sector.

In addition to looking for a compromise that all Democrats can support, Reid will need the backing of the Obama administration and at least some Senate Republicans.

Although Democrats point most frequently to Maine’s Sen. Olympia Snowe as a possible Republican ally on the issue, Snowe she said Tuesday that she’s not interested in the job of winning over other GOP senators.

“I’m not sure I’m the gateway to anything,” she said, adding that she’s open — but not committed to — supporting a utility-only carbon cap.

“I think there is a possibility of an energy bill with efficiency and conservation and renewables, and perhaps from there you could reach a point of addressing utilities-only,” she said. “Even then, I’m not so sure given the skepticism that’s been expressed by so many about pricing carbon…First and foremost, you don’t want to pose a greater cost on consumers in any way.”

Written by Patricia Murphy for PoliticsDaily.com, July 13, 2010.

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