» 
» 
» 
» 
» 
» 
» 
(AP Photo/Cheryl Gerber)
Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, R-La., answers questions, while Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wy., center background, listens during a health care town hall meeting in Kenner, La., Friday, Aug. 28, 2009.
WASHINGTON— Senate Democrats sidestepped a Republican boycott Thursday, pushing a climate bill out of committee in an early step on a long and contentious road to passage.
Other committees still must weigh-in on the measure, but the partisan antics early on threatened to cast a pall over the bill _ one of President Barack Obama's top priorities _ as it makes its way to the Senate floor and as nations prepare to meet in Copenhagen, Denmark next month to hammer out a new international treaty to slow climate change.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, chairman of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, had delayed the crucial vote for days because of a Republican protest over whether the cost of the legislation had been fully examined. But the California Democrat moved quickly to pass the bill Thursday, which for the first time would set mandatory limits on heat-trapping gases, without any of the seven GOP senators on the panel present. The measure cleared the panel on a 11-1 vote.
Boxer said the Republican demand for more analysis was "duplicative and waste of taxpayer dollars."
"Advancing the bill is a necessary step on the road to garnering the 60 votes we need," said Boxer, who introduced the bill along with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. in late September. "We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott, we have had the will to move this bill forward."
Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the committee, implored the panel to not proceed with what he called a "nuclear option" minutes before the vote. He left shortly after making his statement.
"We have not been able to find a time when a bill has been marked up without minority participation," Inhofe said. Later, in a statement, Inhofe said the move would signal "the death knell" for the Kerry-Boxer bill.
Of the 11 Democrats present at the vote, only one _ Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. _ voted against the legislation, saying that concerns he had with the bill were not fully addressed. The "yes" vote of Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., was added after the vote.
Baucus specifically cited the bill's call for a 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. He said he would like to see that target lowered to 17 percent, with a trigger to raise it to 20 percent if other countries adopted similar measures.
"I am going work to get climate legislation that can get 60 votes through the U.S. Senate and signed into law," Baucus said.
