Restore T.R.U.S.T.

by: JIM MYERS Tulsa World Washington Bureau
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
11/4/2009 3:30:34 AM

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe vowed Tuesday to continue leading a Republican boycott on a sweeping climate change bill and force Democrats to allow a complete economic analysis of the measure.

Declining to say exactly how, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said she plans to move ahead with the bill.

The one-day impasse that kept all but one Republican out of the hearing room appeared to be moving into its second day Wednesday as both sides insisted committee rules were on their side.

At issue is what kind of business the committee can conduct without at least two Republicans present.

"Nothing has changed,'' Inhofe, R-Okla., told reporters late Tuesday afternoon. "We want the analysis."

He dismissed Democrats' claims that the analysis performed on the previously passed House bill represented a good beginning for the Senate bill along with the additional review on its different provisions.

Inhofe also said any attempt by Boxer to move a bill out of the committee would set the type of precedent that could come back and haunt Democrats.

"You are destroying the integrity of the committee system,'' he said.

In a separate press conference, Boxer conceded her committee has found itself in an unusual position.

"I am very sad about that,'' she said.

Still, Boxer was unwilling to concede defeat and suggested the committee will be able to follow its own rules and move the bill.

She declined to explain how that could happen.

In addition to the impasse over what exactly the committee rules allow at this point, Inhofe and Boxer have basic disagreements over the need for the bill by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., designed to reduce pollution, create clean energy jobs and protect U.S. security.

Boxer believes it is urgent for the U.S. not only to address global warming at home but take the lead in doing so for the world.

In an address to a joint session of Congress earlier Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel raised the issue of climate change, citing the threats caused by rising sea levels and global temperatures.

Merkel said an agreement addressing those issues must be reached next month at a major climate conference in Copenhagen.

Inhofe, the committee's top Republican, is perhaps the most vocal global warming skeptic in Congress. He has called global warming the biggest scientific hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.