Recent History
For the past few years, the dynamics of
trans-Atlantic climate change policies have featured a mandatory
emissions trading scheme in Europe and a voluntary, technology-based
approach in the United States. Part of that story in the United States
has played out in the US Senate: The US Senate passed the 1997
Byrd-Hagel Amendment , stipulating that the Senate would not ratify any
international treaty that did not require meaningful participation by
developing countries or that harmed the US economy. The US Senate has
also been the venue for debate over the cap-and-trade program authored
by Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Lieberman (D-CT).
More recently, however, another bipartisan Senatorial team has begun
working on the issue - Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM),
the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Energy Committee. Senator
Bingaman engaged the issue early last year, when his staff examined the
recently completed work of the National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP) . During a brief window of opportunity in June 2005, Senator Bingaman considered introducing a proposal
based on the NCEP report as an amendment to the 2005 Energy Bill. The
Senate was debating the 2005 Energy Policy Act, and there appeared to
be genuine interest in a NCEP-like alternative to the McCain-Lieberman
proposal.
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