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Senate vote indicates tough road for climate change bill

If a vote last week is any indication, the leadership of the U.S. Senate may not have enough votes to advance a comprehensive climate change bill without changing it, sources say.

On Thursday, June 10, the Senate voted on a resolution by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, on whether to rein in the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases. While that resolution failed by a vote of 47-53, it demonstrated that Senate leadership may not possess a super majority of 60 votes to advance broader climate change legislation.

“Yes, Sen. Murkowski’s resolution was not agreed to by the Senate. However, most major pieces of legislation in the Senate require 60 votes, and it’s very clear that should climate change legislation be debated in the remainder of this Congress, they may very well not have those 60 votes,” said Mike Joyce, director of legislative affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

“If somebody wants to pass comprehensive climate-change legislation, I don’t think it’s going to happen based on this showing,” Joyce said.

Joyce said lawmakers should now be listening to constituents, especially truckers, about what sweeping climate change legislation proposed by Sens. John Kerry, D-MA, and Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, could do to their bottom lines.

Trucking has made tremendous strides in reducing harmful emissions in recent years, a point that U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood recently acknowledged in a letter to the American Trucking Associations.

The Kerry-Lieberman proposal would continue to lower the boom on trucking in terms of fuel price increases and the cost of new equipment.

“We’re greener than before, and we want to be green,” said Joyce.

“But all we see is punishment to an industry that we feel has been paying a price already. We paid a price with 2010 engines and 2007 engines, and we’re paying a high price for diesel fuel.

“We want the Congress to pursue logical policies and reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and we’ve made progress with things like the SmartWay program. But we see a whole lot of stick and very little carrot in the way climate change legislation is being pursued.”

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