Climate Bill Clears Hurdle, but Others Remain

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, splitting largely along party lines, approved on Thursday the most ambitious energy and global warming legislation ever debated in Congress. The bill’s passage, on a 33-to-25 vote, served as a bookend to a week that began with President Obama’s announcing a deal with auto manufacturers to impose tough new mileage and emissions standards for all cars and trucks sold in the United States starting in 2012. With progress on this legislation and his own executive actions, Mr. Obama is assembling the pieces of a credible American package to take to Copenhagen later this year as United Nations negotiators gather for talks on a new global warming treaty. But the energy legislation passed on Thursday still faces a tortuous path through several more House committees before it can be brought up for a vote later this year. In the Senate, leaders say they lack the votes to pass the bill as it is now written...NYTimes