The Senate voted 48-36 this morning to move forward on
the Climate Security Act (S. 3036), falling short of the necessary 60-vote
threshold and causing consideration of the bill to end without any substantive
votes on the measure. An additional 6 senators, who missed the vote, submitted
statements indicating that they would have voted to move forward had they been
present.
The inconvenient truth is that the Republican leadership
is too captive to the polluters to confront global warming. Today’s action by
the U.S. Senate makes the cowardly lion seem courageous. Faced with an urgent
problem that demands action, the Senate passed the buck.
Global warming is the defining challenge of our time.
Scientists warn that if we don’t act quickly and boldly to reduce our emissions
of global warming pollution, the United States and the world risk devastating
damage to our environment, economy, and way of
life.
The United States must commit to the
emission reductions science tells us are necessary, make polluters pay for their
pollution, and aggressively promote the energy efficiency and renewable energy
infrastructure that will enable us to transition to a clean energy
economy.
The solutions exist today that can get us much of the
way there. And states across the country are already making these solutions a
reality.
Unfortunately, the Senate Republican leadership, backed
by Big Oil and coal and a presidential veto threat, made clear this week that
they are intent on blocking action on global warming. At every turn, they used
procedural maneuvers to obstruct consideration of the bill.
Next time around, the polluters and their allies in
Congress won’t get off so easy. In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll educate
and mobilize the American public on the urgent need for action to stop the worst
effects of global warming and the many opportunities inherent in a massive
transition to a clean energy economy, helping to pave the way for stronger
legislation next year that will get the job done.
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Environment
America, a federation of state environment groups, is the
new home for U.S. PIRG’s environmental
work.
