(Cross-posted at Red Green and Blue)
The Washington Independent reports that Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) won't support his own climate bill that he's spent months developing with John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (?-CT).
Why not? He says it's because it's too restrictive on drilling!
“What I have withdrawn from is a bill that basically restricts drilling in a way that is never going to happen in the future,” Graham said. “I wanted it to safely occur in the future; I don’t want to take it off the table.”
What's really going on?
Remember the health care debate?
In which negotiations dragged on for months and months and months between Democrats and "moderate Republicans" in order to achieve some sort of bi-partisan consensus, only to break down at the last minute?
In which Democrats watered down the bill, giving in time after time to "moderate Republicans", only to have them vote against the very compromises they had demanded?
I think we're seeing the same thing again here.
Delay, delay, delay, then in the end obstruct.
And of course, after all those months of discussion, what did they call for? "Start over from scratch."
So what does Graham say now?
Graham said his advice to lawmakers is to “start over and scale down your ambitions.” This includes allowing electric utilities more time to meet their emission reduction targets and completely removing energy-intensive manufacturers and other industries from a carbon control plan. The technology does not yet exist for them to be able to capture and store carbon emissions, he argued.
Because we all know that the one thing Washington needs is more time to talk about it.