Dems mull keeping powder dry Thursday on climate bill

House Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats may decline to offer amendments Thursday when a panel considers GOP legislation that strips the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The Energy and Power subcommittee is marking up the bill aimed at blocking regulation of power plants, refineries and other industrial facilities.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee’s top Democrat, said plans haven’t been finalized and that a no-amendments approach is “under consideration.”

“We will certainly revisit the issue when it [the bill] gets to full Committee,” he told E2.

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) also said the no-amendments approach is under discussion for Thursday's markup.

“We think it is putrid and you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” he said of the legislation. “They are hell-bent on trying to repeal [EPA’s authority] — we think it is outrageous, I think that any fair-minded person would know it is outrageous, and I don’t know that we would want to dignify it.”

“We are still talking about it,” Engel said.

Democratic amendments would be highly unlikely to succeed, but would provide a chance to force votes on measures that highlight Democratic criticisms of repealing EPA’s authority.

Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) is the bill’s lead sponsor, and it currently has 30 co-sponsors, including three Democrats.