![On the back of a Dragonfly [B&W]](http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6194/6128449851_14ec409b56_s.jpg "On the back of a Dragonfly [B&W]")
The story of the day is all about the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill passing out of committee. Reactions:
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, splitting largely along party lines, approved [on a 33-to-25 vote] on Thursday the most ambitious energy and global warming legislation ever debated in Congress...But the energy legislation passed on Thursday still faces a tortuous path through several more House committees before it can be brought up for a vote later this year. In the Senate, leaders say they lack the votes to pass the bill as it is now written."
A bill to create the first national limit on greenhouse-gas emissions was approved by a House committee yesterday after a week of late-night debates that cemented the shift of climate change from rhetorical jousting to a subject of serious, if messy, Washington policymaking. The legislation would create a cap-and-trade system: Over the next decades, power plants, oil refineries and manufacturers would be required to obtain allowances for the pollution they emit. Those who need more or less could turn to a Wall-Street-like market in the allowances."
After months of grueling hearings and deliberations, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the Waxman-Markey climate and energy bill by a vote of 33-25 on Thursday evening. It’s a landmark occasion, the first time a serious climate bill has made it this far in the House. The bill would cut greenhouse-gas emissions about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and about 80 percent by 2050, while promoting renewable energy and energy efficiency.
"Every journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step — including stopping human-caused global warming at “safe levels,” as close as possible to 2°C. Many people have asked me how I can reconcile my climate science realism, which demands far stronger action than the Waxman-Markey bill requires, and my climate politics realism, which has led me to strongly advocate passage of this flawed bill."
