Republicans to Boycott Senate Climate Bill Mark Up; Boxer to Proceed Regardless

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) has promised to mark up climate legislation in her committee on Tuesday, as planned, despite an expected boycott of the work session by the committee's Republican members.

While two members from the minority party (currently, the Republicans) are usually required for a quorum when the committee is marking up a bill, Boxer plans to use a provision in the rules that will allow the Democrats to proceed as long as a majority of committee members are present and votes in favor of the bill. Democrats outnumber Republicans on the committee 12 to 7, so Boxer is confident of her majority.

Led by U.S. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the committee's top-ranked Republican member, all of the Republican members plan to skip the scheduled mark up tomorrow, claiming the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to do a full economic impact analysis of the climate bill. Boxer and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.)--the two primary sponsors of the bill--rejected this claim and cited the many different ways the legislation has been examined and analyzed. They urged the Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to reconsider and rejoin their Democratic colleagues to finish their work on the bill this week. Regardless of what the Republicans decide, however, Boxer says she will proceed with the mark up.

But this battle of wills goes much deeper than the details of the EPA's economic analysis or, for that matter, of the bill itself.

Inhofe, the foremost climate skeptic now serving in Congress, is famous for claiming that global warming is the "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people," and he says the Boxer-Kerry climate bill would result in the "largest tax increase in American history." Inhofe also has pledged to form a hand-picked "truth squad" to travel to international climate treaty negotiations in Copenhagen in December to try to derail the effort to craft a global strategy to deal with climate change.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has made coping with climate change, and establishing U.S. leadership on the issue, a signature issue of his presidency. As a result, it has become a target for Republican leaders who are hoping to rack up enough Obama and Democratic failures to take back the White House and seize control of Congress.

As the latest move in this political chess match, all six ranking Republicans on committees with jurisdiction over climate change legislation backed Inhofe's play by sending Boxer a letter on Monday afternoon, asking her to delay her committee's work on the bill until a full economic analysis is performed.

"As real as the challenge posed by global warming may be, so too are the costs associated with bills that seek to address the matter," the letter said. The senators went on to say that the kind of economic analyses they are requesting, while imperfect, are "an essential aspect of the legislative decision-making process" and "are worth the time and resources not only to get them done, but to get them done right." The senators told Boxer that congressional passage of the bill would require strong bipartisan support, and cautioned her that proceeding with the mark up over Republican objections "would severely damage, rather than help, the chances of enacting changes to our nation's climate and energy policies."

_{Photo by Scott J. Ferrell/Getty Images}

Also Read:

• Is Global Warming a Hoax?
• EPA Places Annual Cost of Climate Bill at $100 Per U.S. Household
• Senator Murkowski Seeks to Block EPA Regulation of Greenhouse Gases