By Richard Cowan
Washington - United States senators writing a massive climate-change bill struggled on Thursday over how to reduce carbon dioxide pollution in the transportation sector, Senator Lindsey Graham said, adding that he did not yet know whether a measure would be ready by Monday.
"The transportation sector is a problem," Graham told reporters. "We're just dealing with that."
Graham, a Republican, has been collaborating with Democratic Senator John Kerry and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman on a bill they hope to sketch out on Monday, but which will face an uphill fight this year.
Asked whether the trio will be able to meet that deadline, Graham responded, "I don't know yet".
The fight over how Congress should reduce pollution that scientists blame for global warming was unfolding as environmentalists celebrated the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
"Earth Day 2010 must be a reflection point that helps make this the year the Senate passes comprehensive climate and energy legislation," Kerry said in a statement.
He called it "our last and best shot" at finding 60 votes needed in the Senate for controversial bills such as this one to clear procedural hurdles.
Kerry, Graham and Lieberman had been looking at a "linked fee" on motor fuels, applied after oil is refined, as a way of handling the transportation part of the climate bill.
That fee would have been linked to the price of carbon pollution permits for electric power utilities that would be traded on a regulated market.
But according to sources, there was strong backlash from other senators to the idea of a "fee," which opponents would label a tax on consumers that they would pay at the gasoline pump.
Some environmental sources have told Reuters that the three senators have been looking at a substitute idea - one that would have oil refiners buying pollution "allowances" that are based on the carbon content of their fuels. - Reuters