Climate debate has rocky start for US Senate panel

European leaders pressed Congress and the White House on Tuesday to unite on a plan to combat global warming, even as a Republican boycott forced a delay of votes in a key Senate committee, demonstrating the deep partisan rift. An emotional plea for action by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an address before Congress was met with silence from most Republicans, while Democrats stood and applauded. The Europeans as well as the U.S. were pressured in turn by African nations to do more, at a conference in Spain leading up to next month's international climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. In Washington, shortly before Merkel spoke in the House chamber, GOP senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee shunned the planned startup of voting on amendments to a 959-page Democratic bill that would curb greenhouse gases from power plants and large industrial facilities. They protested that the bill's cost to the economy — in the form of more expensive energy and the impact on jobs — had not been fully examined...read more