Nor were the authors of their failed cap-and-trade bill, Henry Waxman or Ed Markey.
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At times he has argued powerfully in favour of a cap-and-trade bill to moderate climate change.
For example, House Democrats recently passed a cap-and-trade bill that would raise energy prices.
The trade bill is scheduled to go to the Senate floor vote next week.
Passing the China trade bill is among President Clinton's top legislative priorities for his final year in office.
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Broad support from the voters is something that both the health bill and the cap-and-trade bill clearly lack.
But already businessmen in Hong Kong are warning that the passage of the trade bill won't lead to overnight changes.
Properly mobilised, it would have made approval of both the North American Free-Trade Agreement and the China trade bill much easier.
In retrospect, the China-trade bill, which the House of Representatives passed last week, was something of a gift for Mr Bush.
But Kennan resigned out of pique when he felt Kennedy had crossed him up by signing a trade bill that stigmatized Yugoslavia.
The centrepiece of his programme was to be a cap-and-trade bill.
The only time Congress even considered imposing GHG performance standards on power plants was during the debate on the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.
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As for energy, the Senate legislation bears little resemblance to the cap-and-trade bill steered through the House last year by Henry Waxman and Edward Markey.
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That is why chances for passing a cap-and-trade bill this year are poor, and you are not likely to hear Democratic candidates talk much about it.
That taunt, coupled with Republican concessions on the unrelated items, meant the African and Caribbean trade bill proceeded to debate, and was passed on November 3rd.
Even before the setback in Massachusetts, Mr Obama saw this as one way to cut carbon emissions if the Senate failed to pass a cap-and-trade bill.
Critics of the Obama Administration have accused the president of abandoning climate change after the cap and trade bill he supported stalled in the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate.
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"We're challenging Waxman-Markey's cap-and-trade bill, not the need for a legislative response to climate change, " says Karen Harbert, head of the Chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy.
U.S. technology transfer policies vis-a-vis the PRC have been substantially liberalized in recent years both through executive action and in accordance with the requirements of the omnibus trade bill.
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Putting a price on carbon dioxide, as the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House in June would do, would make coal more expensive to burn and gas relatively cheaper.
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The rapid decline in U.S. emissions has taken some pressure off the White House after the 2010 failure of a cap-and-trade bill meant to put a price on carbon emissions.
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It also includes a trade bill with Vietnam (where the president is going later this week) and the confirmation of a new secretary of defense (in a time of war).
David Bonior, the bill's leading Democratic opponent, says that two-thirds of his party will oppose it, 40 more than opposed the annual renewal of the China trade bill last year.
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But the House of Representatives has produced a cap-and-trade bill that is protectionist, riddled with exemptions and which gives away the permits that are supposed to force carbon-emitters to change their ways.
So, for example, if you have a trade bill with Russia, and Russia would have the ability to block the import of U.S. chickens, Biden's going to try to protect Delaware on that.
Trade agreements fall under the jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee, which is scheduled to vote on PNTR for China on Wednesday, before advancing the trade bill to the full House of Representatives.
He and Independent Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman had worked hard to push a global climate crisis-premised 2010 carbon cap-and-trade bill, only to see its prospects for passage swept away in a Republican House cleaning.
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Craig Van Grasstek, an expert on American trade politics, thinks Republicans in Congress may try to exploit the administration's discomfort and the Democrats' divisions by tying a big trade bill to the China vote.
This is a big year for lobbying, and natural gas producers could indeed benefit from a cap-and-trade bill because it would create an incentive to rely less on electricity generated by traditional coal-fired power plants.
Before the agreement, sharp differences had emerged in Congress over the trade bill, with Democrats insisting that there should be additional benefits for workers who lose their jobs because of the extension of free trade.
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