Senate could shift attitude on emissions

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WASHINGTON, June 11 (UPI) -- Several U.S. senators, both Democrats and Republicans, are poised to offer rival climate change proposals to the Senate energy bill.

"We need to deal with global warming, not only because it's the right thing to do, it's the smart political and diplomatic thing to do," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

Hagel has written three bills with Democrats aimed at promoting development of clean technology at home or abroad.

"There is some political payoff in this," Hagel said.

Some environmentalists welcome the end of the logjam on the bill, but the paper said some are worried the Senate may adopt a weak bill that would undermine more meaningful attempts to cut greenhouse gases produced in the United States.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., have teamed up to propose a a cap-and-trade system that would, in the worst-case scenario, freeze carbon emissions in 2010 at their levels that year, the Post reported.

"The only bill that guarantees reductions is the McCain-Lieberman Act," said Fred Krupp, president of the advocacy group Environmental Defense.