Senate plans climate bills for January

Senate Democrats yesterday moved to make good on president-elect Barack Obama's commitment to deliver meaningful action on climate change early in his administration, announcing that they are to begin work on drafting a US climate legislation to be introduced early next year.

Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, said that the Senate would put forward two new bills as early as January, one cementing Obama's campaign commitment to invest $15bn a year in clean tech over 10 years and the other directing the US Environmental Protection Agency to set up a national carbon cap-and-trade scheme.

"The time to start is now," she said, adding that the election of Obama would mark a "sea change" in US climate change policy.

"Instead of denial we will have resolve, instead of procrastination, we will have action. Instead of listening to the voice of the stagnant status quo, our committee hears the voice of our president-elect," she said.

Boxer declined to give precise details about the new legislation, but said it would be consistent with Obama's campaign pledges. Obama has said he favours a federal cap-and-trade scheme designed to return carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and deliver deep 80 per cent cuts by 2050.

The news comes just two days after the president-elect again reiterated his commitments to tackling climate change, telling a conference hosted by Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that there would be a "new chapter in America's leadership on climate change".