Graham Climbs Aboard Climate Change Bandwagon

By Ravi Bhatia – Talk Radio News Service

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has teamed up with Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) to find common ground on creating bipartisan climate change legislation, with hopes of making progress before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen next month.

“The green economy is coming. We can either follow or lead,” Graham said at a press conference on Wednesday. “Those countries who follow will pay a price. those countries who lead in creating a new green economy for the world will make money.”

Graham and Kerry wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times published on Oct. 11 that highlighted some of the goals of the legislation, which include acknowledging that climate change is real, investing in wind, solar and nuclear energy and breaking U.S dependence on foreign oil.

Republicans boycotted the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee markups of the Kerry-Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to urge the committee to submit the legislation to the Environmental Protection Agency for economic analysis. Ranking member Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) was the lone Republican to attend Wednesday’s meeting, although he departed after only 15 minutes.

“I do believe that all of the cars we have on the road and the trucks and the energy we use that produces carbon daily is not a good thing for the planet,” Graham said. “But if environmental policy is not good business policy you’ll never get 60 votes.”

According to Lieberman, the stakes are “too high” to wait on drafting climate change legislation.

“We will be held accountable by history unless we make every effort to find common ground,” he said.