Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts will put the chill on climate legislation

[kgrandia]

Republican candidate Scott Brown has won the race to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts and, as I wrote earlier today, this does not bode well for the clean energy and climate change legislation currently being considered in the Senate.

Up until a couple of weeks ago this was seen as an easy win for the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, but as the polls began to tighten, the political punditry began to speculate what a Republican win would mean for President Obama's health care reform package. In a nutshell, and without getting into wonky talk about super-majorities and the like, a Brown win in the Bay State most likely means health-care-for-all is dead in the water.

While the ramifications for the health care package have rightly been the talk of the town and the cable news talking heads, there are other parts of Obama's plan that will also suffer. One of the biggies is the American Clean Energy And Security Act, also known as the Waxman-Markey bill or the green jobs/clean energy bill.

ACES proposes, among other things, to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency incentives for homes and buildings, grants for green jobs and a cap-and-trade program that aims to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020.

More: http://www.desmogblog.com/scott-browns-win-massachusetts-chills-climate-legislation
And cross-posted here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/scott-browns-win-in-massa_b_429127.html

[yourout]

1. Yep....the legislation is as dead as our planet will be in about 50 years.

[kgrandia]

2. Sad but true

I just can't see it passing. Health care reform had more support in Congress than ACES... so it just doesn't add up.

[Hardrada]

3. I'm rather glad most of my future is behind me.

[depakid]

4. No more than several Democrats were already going to do

At least now the onus can placed where it predominantly belongs.

[Javaman]

5. you mean more so than it already is? nt

[joshcryer]

6. It's OK. "Political reality" never gave climate change legislation a chance.

[TheWraith]

7. I hope all the angry tantrum people are happy with their new Senator.

:eyes: