Key Democrats reached a deal on Tuesday that its supporters hope will lead to passage of the biggest environmental bill in decades, one aimed at slowing the gradual, destructive heating of the planet.
Farm-state Democrats won concessions that will delay the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from drafting regulations that could hamper the ethanol industry and will hand the Agriculture Department oversight of potentially lucrative projects to reduce greenhouse gases on farms.
The House of Representatives is expected to take up the legislation on Friday, the first time the chamber will vote on a bill that would impose nationwide limits on the gases blamed for global warming emitted from power plants, factories and automobiles.
The breakthrough came hours after US President Barack Obama called on the House to pass the legislation and a new EPA analysis showed that it would raise household energy costs on average only an extra US$80 to $111 a year.
“It is legislation that will finally spark a clean energy transformation that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and confront the carbon pollution that threatens our planet,” Obama said. “And that is why I urge members of the House to come together and pass it.”
The deal also concludes weeks of closed-door negotiations between the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Representative Henry Waxman of California, and farm-state Democrats, led by Representative Collin Peterson of Minnesota who expressed concern in recent weeks that there was not enough in the bill to alleviate the costs for farmers and said they would vote against it.
Peterson said Tuesday the agreement secured his vote.
“We have reached an agreement that works for agriculture and contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States,” he said.
The Obama administration and Congress are under pressure to pass climate and energy legislation prior to a gathering in Denmark, in December. The US will sit down with other countries to hammer out a new global agreement to curb the emissions linked to global warming.
Peterson and Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, announced the agreement late on Tuesday. The deal will bar the EPA for five years from including the conversion of forests to crop land when it calculates how ethanol production will contribute to global warming. During that time, the agency will have to conduct a study.
The agreement also includes a promise from Waxman that the US Department of Agriculture, not the EPA, would oversee projects to reduce emissions on farms.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS