Vitter, conservative blog feud over climate change provisions

Sen. David Vitter's (R-La.) office on Tuesday clashed with a conservative blog that claimed Vitter made inaccurate statements about cap-and-trade legislation.

Vitter today called a press conference to highlight a provision in the House and Senate cap-and-trade bills that he says would give the president an expansive mandate to act should carbon emission levels exceed 450 parts per million before 2015.

Vitter, along with a conservative commentator and think tank, said that the section of the bill that mandates the president to "direct relevant Federal agencies to use existing statutory authority" grants the president unilaterally authority to control aspects of the energy industry.

A tweet from Vitter also said the legislation "gives Obama too much power."

But conservative blogger Ed Morrissey disagreed, accusing Vitter of generating "false hysteria" for claiming that the bill gives the president new powers. Morrissey claims the provisions only pertain to existing powers held by the executive branch:

The EPA could certainly operate outside of those parameters, which would give the President at that time a lot of power to dictate certain responses within the regulatory framework — but that power exists now, and is referenced by “existing statutory authority”, which would not mean new dictatorial powers over production. In fact, Obama has threatened to wield it on a few occasions if Congress fails to pass cap-and-trade.

That’s not to say that this bill isn’t dangerous, but it simply doesn’t do what Vitter claims. Nowhere in either bill does the term "climate emergency" appear, which Vitter claims is the lever through which the President will claim dictatorial powers. We need to focus on the real problems of the bill, chief among them that it will kill jobs to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, rather than generate false hysteria to answer false hysteria.

Morrissey also based his claim off of the second portion of the provision only directs the president to issue a report to Congress every four years with recommendations on how to reduce emissions levels.

But Vitter spokesman Joel DiGrado asserted that Vitter is correct, saying the first provision is the more applicable provision. 

"When lawyers write legislation, they put things first for a reason," he told The Hill. "The language is very clear in section one that the president 'shall direct,' agencies to act, which means he is mandated by the legislation to do these things."

DriGrado also said that "nothing [in the bill] explicitly limits the president's authority to act in an extremely broad manner."

He added that Morrissey's post "sort of validates everything we are saying" by publishing the exact text of the legislation.

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