Reid to push energy bill
Washington (CNN) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Tuesday announced the broad outlines of an energy bill he said he will bring to the floor in two weeks. The legislation, cobbled together after months of politically sensitive negotiations, will likely include a controversial cap on emissions from electric utilities that could make it very difficult for the bill to pass.
Reid declined to give specifics of "the rough draft," but said it would have four main sections. The first will be a response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The second will focus on clean energy, consumer savings, and jobs. The third deals with reducing consumption, and the fourth is aimed at reducing emissions from power plants.
"At this stage, we haven't completed it, but we're looking at a way of making sure that when we talk about pollution, that we're focused just on the utility section," Reid told reporters after a meeting with Senate Democrats.
Aides declined to fill in the details of the far-reaching bill. They refused to say if the plan would put a price on the carbon emissions coming from utilities as envisioned in the "cap and trade" program favored by liberal Democratic senators but fiercely opposed by many centrist Democrats and most Republicans.
Reid wouldn't answer a direct question about whether the bill would include a "cap on utility carbon emissions."
"Those words are not in my vocabulary," he responded. 'We're going to work on pollution."
Reid met briefly on the issue Tuesday afternoon with Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, and Carol Browner, who is the White House official in charge of energy and climate change issues.
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Why not keep ramming everything down our throats since you will not be relected.
The time is now to move towards clean renewable energy so we aren't dependant on the GOP'S oil masters.
Oh great, another garbage bill that doesn't fix anything, but raises costs and fees.
Reid (and Obama) need to do some studies before pushing damaging agenda items... especially during an economic downturn.
Those that post that this energy bill (or Obama's Enron-esque, damaging cap and trade) are good for the economy and the planet have no clue what they are talking about. It won't stop 'global warming' OR reduce the costs of energy. We don't get more 'green jobs', but lose jobs (see Spain's experience).
Reid and Obama are frauds.
Nice job Harry, you are doing a great!! Keep pressing on and it will pay off in the end.
Cap and Trade is yet another piece of liberal legislation that comprises Obama's Socialist Agenda! Expect more and more power plays from Democrats as November looms over them. Reid and liberal incumbants like him are smart enough to know their days are numbered so EXPECT them to cram their tax-and-spend Big Government programs down American taxpayers throats before they are permanently ousted. Immigration Reform (Amnesty) will come next! Harry Reid is a despicable little weasel leading the pack!
Harry you have screwed us over too many times, you will lose in November, it can't come soon enough.
look out; the cost of energy will be so high people will be deciding whether to buy medicine or heat their homes. Another big reason to vote Reid out of office. Remember in Nov.
Harry Reid is such a pathetic boob! The energy bill is DOA because even the moderate libs know that this legislation is merely another tax and it's based upon junk science! The American Majority is fed up with these thieves and November is going to be a reckoning for these pigs!
Reid wouldn't answer direct questions because he most likely doesn't understand it himself. The key to passing new laws is that it will create jobs and what I see are people still standing in the Unemployment line with no new jobs created. This story is getting very old (we're going to; we're going to, we're going to and so onnnnn.
Good it's about time. Reducing consumption is the key point and we can only do that by stop producing giant SUV's and soccer mom vans that get 10 mpg. Also we need to eliminate use of fossil fuels for heating/electric generation. We can build hydro-dams, hydro-thermal, wind, solar...green energy needs to get done immediately.
I hope he gets it done before the election. That should be the last nail in his political coffin.
"At this stage, we haven't completed it."
No? Then please don't complete it.
More green/clean folly, very much like Gore's Global Warm–uh, Climate Change.
It's not an "energy bill," it's a tax bill of outrageous magnitude. Of course Reid favours it: Dems love taxes.
And it doesn't seem to matter to the far-left nuts like Reid that a majority of Americans don't want their various cap-and-tax rip-offs to pass–they proved with Obamacare that they're completely indifferent to what the people of this country want.
Of course, Reid only has about six months left in office, and he knows it–passing a huge tax increase over the objections of American voters isn't going to hurt him.