Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell charges that the energy company BP helped craft the cap-and-trade bill proposed by Democratic Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman.
“The problem for Democrats is that debating the Democrat cap-and-trade bill might not fit neatly into the White House messaging plan since it’s been widely reported that a major part, a major part of the Kerry-Lieberman bill was essentially written by BP,” the Kentucky Republican said on the Senate floor on Wednesday, referring to the company responsible for the massive and ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Let me say that again. A major part of the Kerry-Lieberman bill was written by BP. This is clearly an inconvenient fact,” McConnell emphasized.
Congress is debating a compromise global warming bill — a watered-down version of earlier climate change bills — introduced in May by Kerry and Lieberman after the oil rig explosion in April. It would tax businesses for carbon emissions and raise the cost of fuel for American consumers, CNS News reports.
McConnell also charged that Democrats are trying to “piggy-back” the climate change legislation into a bill under consideration to deal with future oil spills.
“An administration that seems to spend most of its time coming up with new ways to show how angry it is at BP is pushing a proposal that BP actually helped write,” said McConnell. “I can’t understand it, and I don’t think the American people will understand why it makes sense to respond to the BP oil spill by imposing a gas-tax increase on the American people that was advocated by BP.”
When asked by CNS News about McConnell’s assertion that a major part of the Kerry-Lieberman bill was essentially written by BP, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Committee on Environment and Public Works, said, “I believe that’s true.”
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