Looks Like No Senate Vote on Climate and Clean Energy Bill at Least Until November - Thank Goodness! Commentary by Joseph Romm, ClimateProgress,July 27, 2009. "Since tortoise-like Senate floor debates are a lot longer than hare-like House debates, it is all but impossible to imagine the Senate vote on a climate bill before November. And I'd say it's at least 50-50 the vote isn't until December or January, which would put a final bill, conferenced and passed again by both House and Senate, on Obama's desk maybe in March... No hurry. Right now, the House bill starts its first cap in 2012, but in any case the cap doesn't actually start to bite for several more years after that, so it is far more important that the one shot we get in the Senate is our best shot. And we need time for several reasons:... Senators just won't vote for a bill written by House members. Not invented here... bill capable of getting 60 votes currently exists and won't until late September at the earliest... Obama needs some sort of serious announcement from China that it is going sharply change its business as usual emissions path... The next stage of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen the first two weeks in December is very unlikely to result in a final deal, but it is likely to move the ball forward. If so, it might be better to have the Senate vote afterwards... Some genuine progress at the international level could give Senators the kind of pivotal and historical role they see themselves as asserting."
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