Senator Barbara Boxer is hastily cramming cap-and-trade legislation through the Environment and Public Works Committee, which she chairs, earning the ire of Republicans by her attempt to make progress on the bill to satisfy an unofficial “deadline” imposed by the United Nations.

John Kerry, the bill's sponsor ever since Harry Reid bumped the divisive Boxer down to co-sponsor, downplayed any talk about a deadline. However, he did admit to reporters Monday that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “emphasized the urgency of trying to have some movement in the Senate obviously…pre-going to Copenhagen,” a reference to the international climate change talks scheduled for December.

The fact that the U.N. is applying pressure to influence the direction of the country’s legislation should cause tremendous discomfort among Americans who feel strongly about our sovereignty.

Indeed, Senator Boxer is so eager to show the Democratic leadership and the U.N. some movement on cap-and-trade that she’s holding three legislative hearings this week--the first of which revealed obvious tension between moderate and liberal Democrats this afternoon. But no matter: Boxer will keep pushing to move this bill to mark-up sometime next week. According to Congress Daily:

Republicans on Boxer's panel are threatening to boycott a markup and prevent a quorum, complaining EPA has not done a real analysis of the bill and Republicans would ot be able to do their own analysis if a markup occurred next week. 

"We ought to have some pretty solid information from the Congressional Budget Office and Environmental Protection Agency about who's getting the money," Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said Monday. "We need to understand who's getting what before we start voting." Alexander said he favors "good hearings" about legislation and what it costs. "And we won't be able to do that this week because we don't have much knowledge about what it costs," he said.

A spokesman for Environment and Public Works ranking member James Inhofe said of a GOP boycott, "It does seem like that's the direction we're heading."

Boxer has several tools in case Republicans do not show up to a markup, including invoking Rule 14, which allows a panel to report a bill out without a markup.

So, the Senator from California, who’s seen only three of her bills in the last seventeen years signed into law, is willing to literally pull out all the stops in her rush to move this bill down the field, a piece of legislation that will help put us at the mercy of international climate change hysteria.

Senator Boxer: why the sudden urgency to finally get one of your bills--this bill--passed?
 

*homepage photo courtesy of Flickr user, nwf