This is what the 2010 midterm elections will change about U.S. climate policy: Cap-and-trade was dead. Now it will be deader.
The Republican rout on Nov. 2 swept in dozens of new representatives and senators opposed to using a cap-and-trade scheme to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. By one estimate, almost half of GOP freshman legislators don’t even believe there is sound science behind the theory of man-made climate change.
But, observers say, the election may do relatively little to alter U.S. climate policy before U.N. climate talks begin in Cancun, Mexico, on Nov. 29.
The Republican victories will finally bury the Obama administration’s Plan A, which included passing a landmark climate bill in Congress. But that plan was, in essence, already defunct. And the new GOP majority will have few easy options for undoing the White House’s Plan B, a set of new regulations that will cut emissions from power plants and factories.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/21/MNEI1GFHLK.DTL#ixzz164ZAdEhl
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