Senate Watch: Alexander, Barrasso, Bingaman, Carper, Kerry, Murkowski
John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)E&E News I think to base a budget upon the passage of an economy wide cap and trade this year would be a very risky bet. It’s hard for me to imagine economy wide cap and trade passing the Senate in 2010.
Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.)E&E News Clearly, the sentiment of the Senate is that’s [cap-and-trade] not going to be something that’s going to pass.
Tom Carper (D-Del.)E&E News That’s [cap and trade] a less reliable source of revenue than they might have thought it was a year ago.”
John Kerry (D-Mass.)E&E News The best thing about reducing energy use is that it’s not just good for the environment—it saves money, too.
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)E&E News See, what happened last time was it [cap-and-trade] went into the federal Treasury and it was unaccounted for… That set off a lot of alarm bells with people. That’s not what it’s meant to be, and that’s not what’s going to happen… I’m not ruling anything out, but I’m not suggesting anyone has ever talked about that right now… It’s not been a conversation and nobody has made that suggestion, and we hope we’re going to get 60 votes for this or more.
E&E News This [the administration’s loan guarantee pledge] is a good first step toward expanding our use of clean nuclear energy. The next step for the administration is to ensure that these loan guarantees are actually awarded in a timely manner.