U.S. Senator Kit Bond said a climate change bill that passed the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee will hurt workers and low-income families.
“Millions of families, farmers, drivers and workers will pay higher heating bills, suffer more pain at the pump, and lose more jobs because of this bill,” said Bond.
He's referring to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act of 2007, S. 2191.
The bill aims to set up a federal program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power, industry and transportation sectors by 70 percent by 2050, without cutting economic growth or imposing hardship on U.S. citizens, according to Reuters.
At a hearing, Bond stressed that bill does not provide adequate protections to ensure low- and fixed-income families are not significantly harmed from high home energy prices. Bond criticized his colleagues for failing to approve his amendment that would have protected these vulnerable families. Bond’s amendment included an automatic emergency cost relief measure. The emergency cost relief measure would trigger a “safety valve” when provisions of the bill fail to avert significant hardship for families, specifically high electricity and natural gas costs, according to the Senator's office.
“The Lieberman-Warner proposal is extremely complicated and far-reaching. We should be looking for common sense proposals, not the Lieberman-Warner bill which hurt the poor, hurt vulnerable workers and send jobs overseas," Bond said.
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