Climate Bill Must Clear Coal-state Dems

By Dan Testa, 11-17-09

	Caption: The Judith Gap Wind Energy Center in Montana. - Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor

POLITICO has an interesting piece this morning analyzing the obstacles any climate change bill faces in gaining approval from coal state lawmakers, particularly Democrats. And while Montana certainly isn't a coal state on the scale of say, West Virginia or Kentucky, Sen. Max Baucus is still likely to take a critical approach to the bill when it enters the Finance Committee. Meanwhile, the state Land Board appears to be looking carefully at developing state-owned coal tracts in southeast Montana, putting off any decisions for another month.

From the POLITICO story:

The coal industry also has a major issue with the proposed 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Baucus and other coal-state senators would like to see a 14 percent to 17 percent emissions target to give the industry more time to develop new technologies like carbon capture and sequestration — a still-experimental technology that would catch greenhouse gas emissions before they enter the air and bury them in holes in the ground or under the ocean.

But while the coal industry and its backers keep chipping away at the Boxer bill, a weaker emissions target could be a deal breaker for liberal Democrats.

“I’ll do everything I can to oppose that,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said of the lowered targets.

[End of article]