On May 12, 2010, Senators Kerry and Lieberman released their
long awaited climate and energy security bill, the
American Power Act Bill. Senator Lindsay
Graham was a co-sponsor of this bill prior to withdrawing his
participation a few weeks ago, primarily for political reasons not
related to the content of the bill. Last week, Graham cited the
Gulf oil spill as another reason not to move ahead with the bill at
this time. Notwithstanding this, the bill has now been released for
review by the Senate. The bill will need 60 votes in order to pass
in the Senate, which will be difficult to muster without the
support of all 59 Democrat senators and at least one Republican
senator. Support by some Democrat senators for a climate and energy
bill has been in question due to the potential impact of the bill
on certain coal state economies and states opposing offshore
drilling. However, the draft bill attempts to address some of these
issues.
