Richard Cowan
Reuters
4/11/2010
Six months after introducing a sweeping climate change bill that flopped in the Senate, Democrat John Kerry is preparing to offer a compromise measure that seeks to reel in reluctant senators.
Kerry, collaborating with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman, might introduce a new bill promoting clean energy early next week, just days before the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, environmental sources said…
…”Senators Kerry, Graham, and Lieberman will unveil their proposal later this month,” Kerry spokeswoman Whitney Smith said, adding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was “committed to making this Congress the one that finally passes comprehensive energy and climate legislation.”…
…Electric utilities would be the first sector to have pollution controls imposed — starting in 2012 — through a “cap and trade” system to bring down carbon emissions with required permits that would be traded in a regulated market.
Factories would join the pollution-reduction system in 2016, industry and environmental sources have been told.
A third sector, transportation, would see a tax levied on refined oil products, a Senate source told Reuters last week, with the expectation it would be passed on to consumers when they buy gasoline and other fuel products…
Read the complete article at Reuters.
