Facing resistance from members of his own party, US President Barack Obama wants to meet with all 36 Democrats on the House energy committee to reach agreement on climate and energy legislation.
A White House aide said Obama planned to meet with the lawmakers yesterday to discuss two of his key domestic priorities — legislation to cut the emissions linked to global warming by requiring cleaner sources of energy and healthcare reform.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Ed Markey unveiled a draft bill in March that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with a proposal Obama called for in his campaign.
POSTPONED
But the committee has postponed writing the final version of the bill because of concerns raised by moderate Democrats about the cost.
Obama’s budget expects to raise US$650 billion by auctioning off permits to companies that release heat-trapping gases, with the bulk of the money going back to families to help with higher energy prices.
Democrats from coal and industrial states are pushing Waxman and Markey to distribute at least some of those permits for free to ease costs.
IMPACT
Meanwhile, House Republicans were due to hold their own energy summit yesterday to highlight how the Waxman-Markey bill, which they call a national energy tax, will impact middle-class families and small businesses.
Also, a bipartisan group of seven House members yesterday were due to unveil rival energy legislation. Led by Neil Abercrombie, a Hawaii Democrat, and Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican, the group says their plan will “fuel the American economy rather than fueling partisan debate.”
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
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US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
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