A House committee will vote today on climate-change legislation to reduce greenhouse gases and boost solar and wind power after Democrats and Republicans agreed to hold another hearing on the plan next month.

Representative Joe Barton of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said members of his party would clear the way for a vote later today. Since the hearings opened May 18, the committee has considered about 40 of a possible 400 amendments to the bill.

“We have agreed to expedite the process today in terms of amendments,” Barton said.

Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and chairman of the panel, said he will hold hearings after next week’s Memorial Day recess on how government-issued pollution permits would be distributed to utilities, manufacturers and refiners.

The climate-change plan would cover 85 percent of carbon dioxide and other emissions from U.S. manufacturers, utilities and refiners, and begin a system of permits that could be bought and sold.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said she wants a full House vote on the measure by August. President Barack Obama has urged Congress to act on climate-change legislation before a global climate-meeting in Copenhagen in December.

During hearings this week, Democrats defeated Republican amendments to define nuclear power as a renewable fuel and to keep the plan’s trading system for carbon dioxide permits from being manipulated by speculators.

‘Severely’ Limit Trading

The plan already would “very severely” limit trading in futures contracts and other derivatives based on “cap-and- trade” permits, Waxman said yesterday.

The Republican amendment would have banned all trading in carbon derivatives under a U.S. cap-and-trade program.

These derivatives would be “Wall Street’s newest, hottest, exotic financial instrument,” said Representative Michael Burgess, the Texas Republican who wrote the amendment.

The legislation aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories, oil refineries and the fuels burned by cars and trucks 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The program would be phased in over a four-year period starting in 2012.

The measure would require all trading in derivatives based on carbon dioxide permits to be carried out on exchanges, rather than over-the-counter, unless Obama developed a different plan for carbon market oversight.

‘Bona-Fide Hedging’

This would allow the firms regulated under the cap-and- trade program to engage in “bona-fide hedging” against future permit prices without creating “a nightmare like we have seen in the financial markets,” said Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat.

Over-the-counter trading in complex financial derivatives helped trigger the collapse of Wall Street banks and the global credit crisis.

Democrats who control the committee yesterday approved an amendment offered by Stupak that would give federal regulators the authority to “seize and freeze” the assets of firms suspected of manipulating the price of carbon dioxide permits or other energy commodities.

Under cap-and-trade, the ceiling on greenhouse gas emissions would be divided into billions of permits, each conferring the right to emit one metric ton of carbon dioxide. In 2016, the first full year of the cap-and-trade program, the Environmental Protection Agency would distribute 5.48 billion permits.

Permit Distribution

The federal government would auction 15 percent of the permits to fund programs that help low- and middle-income families pay their energy bills. Most of the remaining permits would be given away to industry and state governments, with the power sector receiving the largest share, at 35 percent.

By 2020, the EPA would distribute a reduced number of permits -- 5.06 billion -- to enforce the greenhouse gas target for that year. Fewer permits would be issued each year until emissions are cut 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, according to the legislation.

Waxman told reporters yesterday that after his committee approves the measure, he doesn’t expect it to reach the House floor until July because a number of other committees also must consider the bill.

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, said his panel will consider health-care overhaul before it takes up the climate bill because the health plan is further along.

‘Formidable Coalition’

“I’m not worried,” Waxman said. “We’ve got a formidable coalition behind our legislation.”

Also yesterday, the committee rejected Republicans’ effort to blunt the plan to develop environmentally clean energy sources by letting states claim existing nuclear power plants as a form of renewable energy.

The amendment, proposed by Florida Republican Representative Cliff Stearns, would have included existing nuclear plants in a requirement that utilities get 20 percent of their power from wind turbines, solar panels and other renewable sources by 2020. The proposal was defeated 30-26, with five Democrats crossing party lines to join Republicans in supporting the measure.

Had the amendment succeeded, 21 states would already meet the renewable target with nuclear power alone. Obama has set a goal that the U.S. double power from renewable sources in three years.

“If we count in all the existing sources of electricity that are already used, like hydro and nuclear power, we don’t really promote these new renewable fuels,” said Waxman.


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