Rep. Peterson says he'd vote against climate bill despite winning concessions

The perils of steering a climate bill through the Senate in an election year have been well-documented in this space and elsewhere.

Getting a bill back through the House, which narrowly approved a sweeping measure in June, might not be a picnic either.

Take Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), who chairs the House Agriculture Committee. Back in June, Peterson blocked the bill before winning a series of concessions to the agriculture industry.

This included language that blocks EPA from weighing certain land use changes when measuring the “lifecycle” greenhouse gas emissions of ethanol. He voted for the bill.

But now Peterson says that despite the concessions, he would vote “no” if the bill or something like it comes back through the House.

"First of all, this isn't going anyplace in the Senate," Peterson told a conservative talk radio show based in North Dakota, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "But if it did and we ended up with a bill that was similar to what came out of the House and that was going to become law, I would vote no."

The story notes that a Peterson defection could sink the bill because he’s influential among rural Democrats.