Vitter: Global warming bill will fall short in Senate vote
U.S. Sen. David Vitter denounced a U.S. House-passed global warming bill Friday and predicted it will fail in the Senate.
“I don’t think there is anything salvageable in this bill,” said Vitter, R-La.
The Republican spoke to about 180 ExxonMobil Chemical Co. employees and fielded several questions, mostly on energy policies.
Vitter spent most of his time blasting “cap and trade” legislation that won narrow House approval last month with heavy backing from President Barack Obama.
Backers said the measure would offer the first enforceable limits on global warming pollution and create millions of clean energy jobs.
The legislation is supposed to reduce the heat-trapping gases building up in the atmosphere and gradually move America to cleaner sources of energy.
Vitter said the proposal would ignite a huge energy tax increase — $846 billion by one estimate — and damage Louisiana’s economy.
He said the measure also stems from a false premise on how much humans contribute to global warming.
“I don’t think it is clear and settled, the extent of the human impact on temperature trends,” Vitter said afterward.
The bill includes mandatory reduction of emissions that would raise the cost of energy from coal, oil and natural gas. Other provisions are designed to protect consumers.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the bill would cost the average household $175 a year in 2020. Others dispute that estimate.
Vitter said the bill faces opposition from most of the Senate’s 40 GOP members and some of the chamber’s 60 Democrats. Bills in the Senate need 60 votes to get around opponents and fatal delaying tactics.
“It will really come down to getting 60 votes in the Senate,” he said.
Vitter also said that, without similar action by China and India, sweeping steps by the U.S. on global warming will mean little.
“It means we won’t have made any impact,” he said.
Vitter said the bill will get its first look in a Senate committee where he is a member come September. He said he plans to offer at least 300 amendments.
“I am going to be very, very active in that committee,” he said.
Vitter told reporters later that he believes “it is always important to try to improve a bad bill.”
All seven members of the Louisiana delegation voted “no” on the bill when it passed the House on June 26.