Baucus

Sen. Max Baucus, who has worried fellow Democrats with his concerns about the costs and depth of emissions cuts in the Senate climate bill, said today that he is committed to passing "meaningful, balanced climate change legislation."

Last week, the Montana senator was the only Democrat to vote against the climate bill in the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Today, Baucus opened a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, which he chairs, by saying:

"I want our children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy the outdoors the way that we can today. So I’m going to work to pass climate‐change legislation that is both meaningful and that can muster enough votes to become law.

"Today we’ll hear predictions — some optimistic, some otherwise — about the effects that climate legislation will have on American jobs and the American economy. We need to consider these predictions. But we also need to consider the consequences of failing to act."

What Baucus's comments will mean for the climate bill remains to be seen.

The Senate launched a marathon week of climate bill hearings this morning with strong indications from a key Democrat that the legislation will have to be watered down to gain enough votes to pass.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the influential Finance Committee, said he was concerned about the costs involved, the lack of preemption of the Clean Air Act, and the depth of the bill’s mid-term greenhouse gas reduction target — 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, compared to 17% in the House-passed version.

“Montana, with our resource-based agriculture and tourism economies, cannot afford the unmitigated effects of climate change, but we also cannot afford the unmitigated effects of climate change legislation,” Baucus told his colleagues during the Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.

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