GOP Will Cry in the Corner During Kerry-Boxer Markup

The spookiest news I’ve heard so far this Halloween is the report from Politico.com that the seven Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will boycott next Tuesday’s planned markup of the Kerry-Boxer climate legislation. Ah yes, the “screw you guys, I’m going home” tactic. How productive.

There are rules in place that supposedly do not allow the markup to move forward without at least two Republicans present, but the committee’s chairperson Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.) cryptically promised that the rule could somehow be shirked. In either case, this illustrates pretty clearly how far off any sort of meaningful compromise is on climate legislation. It is unlikely a bill will reach a Senate floor vote in the next month or two before the Copenhagen climate summit, although there are several Republicans who have indicated a willingness to break ranks and vote for Kerry-Boxer (including Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and both Maine Senators).

That fact, that this is by no means a universal, down-party-lines issue, should give the Republican committee members pause. They are not exactly going to make any progress by simply trying to avoid the issue, and failing to recognize that some form of cap and trade is extremely likely to get passed within a year will only hurt their chances of bending that bill toward GOP preferences (not that I would mind if that didn’t happen). It’s also not a great demonstration of how representative government should work: if you don’t like something, staying home and closing the shades isn’t going to change it.

[Image: rysac1 on flickr.com]

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