The GOP whip's office sends around this report from the Hill:
House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) on Friday said climate change bill negotiators are heading back to the drawing board after discussions between Democrats "blew up last night."
A meeting between chairmen drafting the climate bill and Democrats on the Agriculture Committee "by and large blew up last night" over the issue of offsets, Peterson said.
Specifically, he said, Agriculture Democrats rejected a concept pitched by bill drafters that would set money aside for a new greenhouse gas conservation program tied together with some offsets.
"It's a whole new concept being brought in at the last minute," Peterson said. "Many didn't like it. ... The bottom line is we're not going to consider anything unless we actually see the language and have it for three or four days so we can figure out what it does."...
Added Peterson, "I'm tired of this running around in circles."
The deal was supposed to be announced Wednesday and the bill was supposed to come out of committee today, but that obviously isn't going to happen. There are eight committees with jurisdiction over this cap and trade bill, which runs some 986 pages last I heard. Only two committees have actually marked up the bill, owing to pressure from Pelosi and Waxman to get it done before health care sucks up all the air, but one of those committees is Agriculture, and Peterson isn't playing ball. He represents a coalition of Blue Dog and moderate Dems who largely represent districts in the South and the Midwest, where there is a much greater dependence on fossil fuels (for electricity generation), manufacturing, and agriculture, and where there is little demand for a massive new tax on energy. In contrast, the Democrats running this issue -- Waxman, Markey, and Pelosi -- all hail from the coasts, where priorities are a little different.
Peterson says he can bring about 40 Dems against this bill, which would be enough to kill it. And that's almost certainly true so long as the bill looks like it's going to die in the Senate. If moderate Dems in the House are looking at the health care fiasco in the Senate right now, they're probably thinking cap and trade doesn't stand a chance -- so why take a tough vote on this disaster of a bill (which not a single member of the House has actually read so far as anyone can tell), if it's never going to move in the Senate anyway.
