NY Times article - registration required
This is actually a good thing - Global Warming is a complex issue and there is not a simple answer. We are leaving a mini-ice age and the warming we are going through is more climate driven than human driven. The majority of the warming happened before 1940 - well before the majority of the CO2 release...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 30
The Senate rejected a plan today that its supporters said would help curb global warming. But the 55-to-43 tally showed how remarkably the political landscape has changed in six years.
The bill called for scientific research on climate change and a system of economic incentives and curbs to prod industrial plants into lowering their carbon-dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases over the next several years.
While the issue was far from the most exciting to come before the lawmakers, today's vote was politically interesting nonetheless. It contrasted sharply with the 95-to-0 vote in 1997, when senators turned down any global-warming policy that would significantly hurt the American economy.
The 43 senators who voted today in favor of steps to curb emissions may have done so because they sense greater awareness among the electorate.
Then, too, six Republicans voted in favor of the bill, even though the measure runs contrary to the approach of President Bush, who opposes mandatory curbs. The six were Senators Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and John S. McCain of Arizona.
Mr. McCain, who was a co-sponsor, with Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, refused to concede defeat in the long run.
"We will be back on this issue just like we were back on the issue of campaign finance reform," he said during debate.
Some foes of the bill said privately that it had less genuine support than the vote tally indicated. According to that theory, some senators who voted "yes" did so to curry favor with environmentalists, knowing all the while that the measure would not pass.
Ten Democrats voted against the measure: Senators Max Baucus of Montana, Carl Levin of Michigan, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Zell Miller of Georgia, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, both of North Dakota, and John Breaux and Mary Landrieu, both of Louisiana.
