N.C.'s Senators Reject Greenhouse Gas Caps

Less than a week after new research published in the journal Science warned that global warming would bring more intense hurricanes to vulnerable areas like North Carolina, the state's U.S. senators rejected mandatory reductions in global warming pollutants.

Republicans Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr were among those senators who voted this week against a proposal that would have capped heat-trapping greenhouse gases at 2000 levels within five years. The vote was on the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (S. 1151) sponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT), which they offered as an amendment to the energy bill. The Senate defeated the amendment by a vote of 38-60.

The McCain-Lieberman legislation is the only proposal in Congress that guarantees a reduction in global warming pollution. It calls for imposing mandatory limits on greenhouse gases by using a market trading system to meet the caps.

Instead, the Senate passed a measure by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) that provides tax subsidies for less-polluting technologies. "The Hagel bill is an inadequate response to a very serious problem," said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense. "But it does signal the shift from debating whether we should do something to what we intend to do."