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US Senate Democrats push through climate bill

WASHINGTON (AFP) --

US Senate Democrats on Thursday pushed through a sweeping climate change bill, maneuvering an end-run around opposition Republicans who continued their boycott of deliberations.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approved the legislation by a vote of 11 to one, with the seven Republicans on the committee absent from the discussion and vote.

The panel is among five other Senate committees which also will weigh in with their draft bills on slowing the pace of climate change before a bill receives a vote in the full chamber, possibly next year.

"We are pleased that despite the Republican boycott we have been able to move this bill forward," said committee chair Democrat Barbara Boxer, after the vote.

Republicans, who boycotted the deliberations for three consecutive days, said they would oppose the bill until they had a "comprehensive analysis" of the economic impact of the legislation from the federal watchdog agency, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

But Boxer said further analysis by the agency was not necessary, and maintained that the EPA's environmental impact assessment of a similar bill approved in June by the House of Representatives, was sufficient.

"We found that, after questioning the EPA extensively, that the Republicans' demand for another EPA analysis now would be duplicative and a waste of taxpayer dollars," she said.

Committee rules require the presence of at least two members of the minority party but Boxer sidestepped the boycott using parliamentary procedures that allowed her to pass the bill by a simple majority of members present, a tactic Republicans decried as a "nuclear option."

At a press conference earlier this week, she signaled the tactical maneuver ahead.

"What they're doing is highly unusual. And what we're doing in response is highly unusual," she said, adding that her actions were completely "by the Senate rules."

Meanwhile, the lone Republican at Thursday's vote, ranking committee member James Inhofe, in a two-minute declaration said his party's position had not changed.

"We still are asking for the same thing," he said.

Republicans also criticized the Democrats' bill as doing too little to promote nuclear energy and is likely to lead to a spike in energy prices.

One Democrat, centrist senator Max Baucus, who serves as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, broke with his party as the lone Democrat to vote against the bill, saying that its goals for reducing greenhouse emission levels were too ambitious.

The Senate legislation faces a long and contentious process ahead, and must be reconciled with a US House bill that calls for cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and by 83 percent by 2050.

The Senate's slightly more ambitious bill calls for a 20-percent cut by 2020. Both bills would create a cap-and-trade regime, aimed at setting the total level of domestic emissions allowable and then allocating quotas to companies.

Firms that emit less than their quota would be allowed to sell their surplus allocation to others that exceed theirs. Those in excess could also face fines.

Democrats wary after odd-year election

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 (UPI) --

The White House may downplay Tuesday's Election Day outcome, but moderate and conservative Democrats in the U.S. Congress say results signal voter uneasiness.

Congressional Democrats point to the number of independent voters who flocked to Republican gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, helping them defeat Democratic candidates. They're warning that results indicate independent voters are wary of President Barack Obama's sweeping proposals, and mounting federal spending and debt, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The question is, do people think we're tending to the things they care about? Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., said as he left a Senate leadership meeting Wednesday. He said colleagues were concerned that the main items Democrats pursue -- healthcare and climate change -- don't connect with voters trying to find or keep their jobs.

Don't think people in my state are going to stand up and start cheering about Copenhagen, Rockefeller said, referring to the U.N. Climate Change Summit in Danish capital in December. Critics of climate change legislation moving through Congress said it would kill jobs in states dependent on manufacturing and natural resources, the Post said.

Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist and a top congressional aide when Democrats lost control of the House in a 1994 GOP landslide, said Wednesday lawmakers are less sanguine now than they were 15 years ago.

They need to pay attention to it, Elmendorf said. Voters spoke, and I think the message they sent was they care about the economy and they care about jobs. I don't think there's any reason to panic here. We have to get healthcare done, and then we have to turn our attention to the economy and jobs.

Democrat wins upstate N.Y. race

WATERTOWN, N.Y., Nov. 4 (UPI) --

Democrat Bill Owens won a bizarre three-way special election in New York state's heavily Republican 23rd congressional district Tuesday.

Douglas Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate who became the official Republican choice less than 72 hours before the polls opened, conceded around midnight, The New York Times reported. With most of the votes counted, he was trailing by a few thousand in the sprawling district on the Canadian border that has been represented in Congress by Republicans for generations.

The Republican candidate, centrist Dede Scozzafava, withdrew Saturday. The Republican leaders who praised her for leaving the field clear for Hoffman were furious when she endorsed Owens the next day.

Scozzafava had the backing of the local Republican establishment. But Hoffman, running as the candidate of New York's long-established Conservative Party, received the support of many Republican headliners, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson.

John McHugh, who had represented the district since 2003, winning with more than 60 percent of the vote in every election, resigned after President Barack Obama named him secretary of the army.

Republicans sweep Va., win in N.J.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) --

The Republican Party, after a clobbering in 2008 at all levels, won off-year governor's races Tuesday in New Jersey and Virginia.

But a Democrat, Bill Owens, won a special election in a heavily Republican upstate New York congressional district that had been held by the GOP for generations. Doug Hoffman, running as a conservative, forced Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race with help from nationally known conservative figures but conceded to Owens.

This one was worth the fight, Hoffman said. And it's only one fight in the battle, and we have to keep fighting.

In New Jersey, Gov. Jon Corzine conceded the election to former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who picked up about half the vote to 45 percent for Corzine and 5 percent for Chris Daggett, a former Republican environmental official running as an independent.

Christie was the first Republican to win statewide in New Jersey since Christie Whitman was re-elected governor in 1997.

In Virginia, former Republican state Attorney General Robert McDonnell won an early and decisive victory over state Sen. Creigh Deeds. The Republicans took all statewide offices and expanded their majority in the House of Delegates.

Republicans cast the New Jersey and Virginia victories as a referendum on President Barack Obama. Democrats said voters were reacting to a sour economy.

People are disgruntled and angry, said New Jersey Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, Corzine's pick for lieutenant governor. When people get angry and hostile, the attitude is, 'Throw the bums out, whoever they are.'

Democrat leads in close upstate NY race

WATERTOWN, N.Y., Nov. 4 (UPI) --

Democrat Bill Owens led Conservative Doug Hoffman by about 4,000 votes late Tuesday in New York state's heavily Republican 23rd congressional district.

The Republican candidate, centrist Dede Scozzafava, withdrew Saturday and endorsed her Democratic opponent Sunday. She remained on the ballot.

With about 77 percent of the precincts reporting, Owens had 49 percent of the vote to 45 percent for Hoffman, The New York Times reported. Rob Ryan, a Hoffman spokesman, said 10,000 absentee votes also remained to be counted and results might not be final for several days.

It's going to be a long night, he said.

John McHugh, who had represented the district since 2003, winning with more than 60 percent of the vote in every election, resigned after President Obama named him secretary of the army.

Obama's Democrats struggle in off-year elections

by Sebastian Smith NEW YORK (AFP) --

US President Barack Obama's Democrats lost the Virginia governor's seat and were struggling in New Jersey in off-year elections that tested Obama's clout 12 months after he swept to power.

Republican Bob McDonnell won the Virginia governor's race with 63 percent of the vote, US media predicted, seizing back the governorship from the Democratic Party.

Projections showed Democratic candidate Creigh Deeds with only 37 percent in a pivotal state that voted for Obama in the 2008 presidential elections.

McDonnell, a conservative Republican, will follow two Democrats in taking over as the state's governor.

In New Jersey, early indications showed the contest between Democratic incumbent Jon Corzine and his Republican challenger Chris Christie too close to call, US media reported after polls closed.

While the off-year races were colored by local politics and personalities, they were seen as testing Obama's popularity as he marked the first anniversary Wednesday of his historic election.

Obama had campaigned for Deeds in Virginia and even more so for Corzine, rallying with 11,000 people just this weekend in a bid to lift the Democrat's flagging campaign.

Another tight race was predicted in upstate New York's 23rd congressional district, where a Conservative candidate backed by Republicans ran strongly against the Democratic candidate.

With nationwide elections to Congress next year and with Obama bogged down in confrontations over the economy, health care reform, and the Afghanistan war, the results of Tuesday's three off-year races were under close scrutiny.

"Obama needs at least one of the three wide-publicized elections to maintain momentum. He'll be hard-pressed to get one," Rutgers University political analyst Ross Baker wrote on the Politico website.

The Republican Governors Association quickly congratulated McDonnell in Virginia, saying his victory gave the party "tremendous momentum heading into 2010."

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs played down the wider significance of the three races, saying: "I don't think the president is looking at these and believes that they say anything about our future legislative efforts or our future political efforts."

If the three races showed that Obama's Democratic machine is not invincible, they also laid bare rifts in the Republican Party over how to rebuild from last year's drubbing in presidential and congressional elections.

In the New York special congressional race, the official, moderate Republican candidate withdrew in the face of the insurgent Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman.

Although he was not running on the Republican ticket, Hoffman had the backing of senior Republican conservatives, including Sarah Palin.

His success has made him a standard bearer for the wing of the Republican Party organizing nationwide "tea party" protests against Obama.

However, other Republicans are arguing for a more centrist stand aimed at attracting independent voters. The official Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, endorsed her Democratic opponent Bill Owens, rather than Hoffman, when she withdrew from the race.

Also on the ballot Tuesday were mayoral posts in major cities, including New York City, Atlanta, Houston, Detroit and Pittsburgh, as well as referendums in Maine and Washington state on allowing same-sex marriage.

New York's mayor, the media tycoon Michael Bloomberg, looked likely to win a third term after getting City Council to scrap a mayoral two-term limit and spending a record amount of his own money on the campaign.

Bloomberg is an independent, but ran on the Republican ballot. His main challenger, the Democrat Bill Thompson, had received almost no support from the Obama camp.

Meanwhile, the frontrunner in Atlanta's mayoral contest, Mary Norwood, would be the city's first white mayor in 36 years if she won.

In Houston, voters were considering electing their first openly gay mayor or their first Hispanic mayor among four leading candidates.