The international fight to control climate change heads to a new arena in June when the US Senate is to debate a bill that could cut total US global warming emissions by 66 per cent by 2050.
Environmentalists are supportive but want more in the legislation, the business community questions the economic impact, and the politicians who have shepherded it seem gratified that it has managed to get this far -- even though it is unlikely to become law this year.
"I look upon this piece of legislation as a great big train in the station and we're trying to get it out," Sen. John Warner, a Virginia Republican who co-sponsored the bill, said after an updated version of the measure was released. Senate debate is set for June 2nd. Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, is the bill's other chief sponsor.
The Bush administration, now in its last months, has consistently opposed an across-the-board cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas emitted by fossil-fueled vehicles and coal-fired industries, as well as by natural sources including human breath.
The United States is the only major industrialized nation outside the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol.
But the three major US presidential candidates - Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, all senators - favour curbing carbon emissions, giving proponents of cap-and-trade hope for legislative action in 2009.
Under the measure set for Senate debate, known as the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, US greenhouse gas emissions would drop by about 2 per cent per year between 2012 and 2050, based on 2005 emission levels.
The bill would cap carbon emissions from 86 per cent of US facilities, and emissions from those would be 19 per cent below current levels by 2020 and 71 per cent below current levels by 2050, according to a summary of the bill's details released by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Total US emissions could be reduced by up to 66 per cent, the summary said.