Rockefeller, Reid set to meet Tuesday on vote delaying EPA climate regs

Sen. Jay Rockefeller will sit down with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Tuesday about holding a vote this year on Rockefeller's plan to suspend Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations by two years, the West Virginia Democrat said Monday.
 
Rockefeller still expects Reid to give his two-year delay plan a vote in a lame-duck session that began Monday despite a lengthy list of legislative options in the post-election session. “He said he would and I think he will,” Rockefeller told reporters in the Capitol Building Monday. “But the question lies not so much in him but in the word ‘opportunity.’”
 
Rockefeller said he is not even sure whether the lame-duck session will extend into December due to Republican posturing over extending unemployment insurance.

“The question is, is there going to be a lame duck?” he said. “Will they extend [UI]? That’ll be the first test of who the Republicans are going to be.”

A vote on Rockefeller’s plan would be merely symbolic as the Democrat controlled House has no plans to take up his measure, which also faces an insurmountable veto threat by the White House.
 
The two-year delay could have more of a chance with a Republican controlled House and a slimmer Democratic Senate majority in the next Congress.
 
Rockefeller though said a vote should occur now given his concern that Republicans in the next Congress might “gut” his two-year delay and go much further than he is comfortable.
 
“I want what's in my bill,” he said. “I think it's fair and proper," he said.

EPA greenhouse gas regulations covering the biggest emitters — including power plants and refineries — are set to start up Jan. 2.