Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is having one heck of a hard time moving his climate change bill out of his committee. Three weeks ago, he had to deal with fellow Democrat Collin Peterson (Minn.), chair of the Agriculture Committee, over several provisions in the bill that Peterson felt didn't carve out quite enough room for "agriculture concerns". Peterson was threatening to start a real fight over which committee would have primary jurisdiction over the cap-and-trade bill.
Now, Peterson is saying that he has as many as 45 Democratic votes against Waxman's bill and the more he looks at what's in there, the worse the bill looks to him. Says Peterson, the negotiations haven't really even gotten started yet.
“We’re stuck,” Peterson said regarding a clash he’s had with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) over a number of issues in the bill. “And there’s a lot of issues that haven’t even come up yet.”
That won't be good news for Speaker Pelosi, who had given a hard deadline of June 19th for all the committee business to be finished. Peterson has dug in and is getting some help from Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who wants his Ways and Means Committee to get its piece of the pie, too. Rangel seems willing to table the cap-and-trade bill entirely and move on to health care while Peterson's claim today means that the bill could die on the floor of the House if Waxman continues to take a unilateral approach to getting it there.
Of course, this is music to the ears of conservatives. A cap-and-trade bill, no matter what it looks like, will be a dagger to the vitals of our economy and a huge tax increase on tens of millions of Americans. Thus far, Republicans have been fairly quite on the Democratic internecine warfare. That is, I think, an incredibly smart move. When -- if -- Waxman, Peterson, and Rangel get themselves sorted out, House Republicans should have spent their time wisely, rallying public opinion against the liberal cap-and-trade ridiculousness.