Boxer “Climate Change” Bill D.O.A?

03 Jun, 2008 by Atlas

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Is Barbara Boxer’s bill dead on arrival? The Senate is debating the much-hyped bill this week and next week, but already Democrats and the bill’s moderate GOP backers are floundering. Roll Call reports:

In the heat of Monday afternoon, Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) fumbled with her kickoff speech on global warming legislation as she tried to wax poetic about the need to save the planet, and the United States, from environmental disaster.

Boxer couldn’t find parts of her speech — Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) leaned in to help at one point — rifled through her notes, went off in several directions and even stopped to talk to her staff in the middle of the speech. Her disorganized comments might have gone unnoticed, but they seemed to symbolize the disarray that many Democrats say has plagued and will continue to afflict the Senate debate on climate change this week.

“We are about to take up the most important fight of our generation, and we have no strategy, no message and no plan to get out of this,” one senior Senate Democratic aide said.

Another senior Senate Democratic staffer echoed those sentiments: “Everyone knows this bill is going nowhere. The president is opposed to it. The House is not inclined toward action on this, and now we’re going to spend valuable floor time on a bill that’s going nowhere … while Republicans are champing at the bit to accuse Democrats of raising gas prices.”…”Boxer is walking us off a cliff,” another senior Senate Democratic aide said.

The result of this disarray is that Republicans in the Senate who were at first fearful of this debate may now be finding their backbone and joining a handful of Senate conservatives intent on killing the bill. Like the immigration debate, the “climate change” debate may end up hurting the bill’s sponsors politically as the American people tune in to the truth about what is actually in the bill. Also like the immigration debate, as the public scrutiny ramps up, expect to see Republicans otherwise inclined to vote for the measure, oppose it in the end.