CLIMATE WARS

House Fight Brews Over Emissions Cuts

Waxman wants 20 percent reduction by 2020.

In the wake of the EPA’s groundbreaking announcement that greenhouse gases pose a danger to the public, House Energy Committee Chairman Henry Waxman is getting down to business. While Obama has announced a 14 percent reduction of greenhouse gases by 2020, Waxman is proposing a bill that would cut greenhouse gases by 20 percent by using a strict cap-and-trade system. And he won't budge: “I want to keep those caps in place,” he tells Bloomberg. Waxman also doesn’t approve of Obama’s plan to fund middle-class tax cuts. “By and large it should be spent on green technologies,” he said of the federal budget. Critics say Waxman’s measure would dramatically raise costs; they warn that the economy could suffer as a result. But Waxman’s message is clear: “It’s what the scientists are telling us we must do.”