Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Friday, June 26, 2009

U.S. House passes Waxman/Markey bill to address climate crisis by a vote of 219-212

Whew, that was close.

By a margin of just seven votes - one less than the total number of Republicans who crossed the aisle to vote for the bill - the United States House of Representatives voted in favor of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, also known informally as the Waxman/Markey bill, H.R. 2454.

A total of two hundred and nineteen Members voted aye on the bill, including all six of Washington's Democratic Representatives (Brian Baird, Adam Smith, Jim McDermott, Jay Inslee, Rick Larsen, and Norm Dicks). Joining them was Republican Dave Reichert, one of only eight Republicans to vote yes. Reichert had previously been noncommittal on the bill; NPI Outreach & Advocacy Director Rick Hegdahl visited his office in Washington, D.C. earlier this week to urge him to vote yes.

Republicans Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Doc Hastings predictably voted nay on the bill. They were joined by one hundred and sixty six of their fellow Republicans, and disappointingly, forty four Democrats.

Two of those forty four are very progressive Democrats who should have been in the yes column: Dennis Kucinich and Peter DeFazio of Oregon.

President Barack Obama, moments after the vote, hailed the bill as "a bold and necessary step" in remarks to reporters at the White House.

"This bill is a huge victory for Washington state," declared Representative Jay Inslee in a statement emailed to NPI.

"In the Northwest, neither the melting Cascade snowpack, nor acidifying ocean waters, nor beetle-ravaged North Cascades forests could have waited much longer for us to act. The price of inaction is too high. Thankfully, today, America has begun a New Apollo Project to move the country toward a clean energy future and away from outdated fossil fuels," Inslee said.

"Since coming to Congress, I have worked to harness America’s innovative genius to create new, clean energy jobs in our state, break our country’s dependence on foreign oil and make this country the world leader in clean energy technologies."

Representative Brian Baird said of his aye vote, "This bill will empower American ingenuity to create millions of jobs and drive our economy for generations to come. In its initial draft, the bill severely limited private forest products and completely prohibited anything from federal land from counting towards biomass energy. I am proud I was able to change that."

"Allowing federal, state and private forest products to be used to meet the renewable energy standard will save Northwest jobs."

Governor Chris Gregoire has chimed in as well, saying "I extend my congratulations and thanks to the Obama administration, and to the U.S. House of Representatives, for their vision and strength in moving the United States closer to truly harnessing a clean energy future. In particular, I thank Washington's Congressional representatives who voted to move the bill forward."

We're working on getting more reaction and will update this post as we have more details.

Comments:

Blogger doctormondo said...

This bill is great! It will cause inflation which will further the need for bigger government, and the air directly over the United States will be nice and clean while the air directly over China will become dirtier since they will undoubtedly be selling making more products for the US market since our manufacturers will be even less competitive due to this legislation! But we won't need manufacturing jobs anyway since we'll all be working for the government doing the new "green" jobs (of course millions of these will be created).

June 27, 2009 7:21 AM  
Blogger Cameron said...

I can not believe you are congratulating congress for passing yet another bill without even having the decency of reading it. There is no way they could have internalized it's true meaning. I will work through my PAC to ensure every person who voted for this bill is defeated in their next election bid. It's the only thing I can do. This is nothing more than a tax increase bill. Have you looked at who stands to gain from this legislation? Just look at the investments of Pelosi, Gore and Markey himself. They could care less about the environment...it is all about their ability to make money. Period. Obama, the passionate ACORN community oregainizer trainer he is, is slowly taking over this country one piece at a time. He doesn't care about any of us...He only cares about himself and will not stop until there is one policitical party, Socailism, with him solely in charge. That's all thus is...we got screwed!!!!

June 27, 2009 8:48 AM  
Blogger 상율 said...

I'd encourage the skeptics over the man-made climate change to think of the sky in Beijing.
The current consumption of dirty, noxious energy reminds me of human smoking habit.

June 26, 2009 9:25 PM  

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