WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Monday's unveiling of a compromise Senate climate bill was postponed on Saturday, Democratic Senator John Kerry said, after a dispute arose over unrelated immigration reform legislation.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said earlier on Saturday he would have to pull out of the bipartisan climate change effort because of concerns Democrats would push forward with a debate on immigration reform, rather than the climate change bill, in the Senate.
Kerry said he hoped to keep working for passage of a climate bill.
He said that after more than six months of detailed meetings with Graham and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman, "we believe that we had reached" an agreement on the details of a bill to reduce smokestack emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases associated with global warming.
They were planning to outline those details at a news conference on Monday that would have been attended by some environmental and industry representatives.
"But regrettably, external issues have arisen that force us to postpone only temporarily" the Senate's work on the climate bill that also would have expanded U.S. nuclear power generation and offshore oil drilling.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
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