Senate energy bill faces job-creation doubts

Long-awaited legislation designed to reduce fossil-fuel use, curb carbon emissions and impose tighter restrictions on offshore drilling was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday, although the bill faces scrutiny from Republicans and moderate Democrats concerned about its economic impact. Promises that the bill — authored by Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman — would add a significant number of energy-related jobs also has come under question, most notably by the independent Congressional Budget Office. The Senate bill, which had been months in the making and involved hundreds of meetings, aims to cut by 2020 carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases by 17 percent below 2005 levels, and more than 80 percent by 2050. It also would set a price on carbon emissions for large polluters such as coal-fired power plants. But a recent CBO study casts doubt on the measure's job-creating potential. The May 5 report, which analyzed how policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions could affect employment, concluded that total employment during the next few decades "would be slightly lower than would be the case in the absence of such policies." The report, which didn't specifically take the Kerry-Lieberman bill into account, said job losses in industries that shrink would lower employment more than job gains in other industries that would increase employment, thereby raising the overall unemployment rate...more