Congratulations to Congressman Waxman for his work in getting the House to pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES).
While there’s lots of work to be done to pass a stronger bill in the Senate, it is worth celebrating Congress’ first strong action on Global Heatstroke. Just imagine if we’d done this a decade ago!
The vote was 219-212, with 44 Democrats opposing the bill because it wasn’t strong enough or because they hailed from conservative districts. I am a bit ashamed that they stuck with their opposition, though, because this sent a bold statement that clean energy is the future of this nation.
CA Dems voting against:
Pete Stark (CA-13)
Jim Costa (CA-20)
CA Reps voting for:
Mary Bono-Mack (CA-45)
Bono-Mack must have known her opponent is really strong this cycle, and sided with a majority of Californians and Americans! As for Stark, I know he had objections to the compromises made to get support from rural Democrats but c’mon, this was a big deal for our nation!
What a wonderful bit of HOPE and CHANGE!
I know that she hadn’t been one of those climate change deniers, and when she had said a few months ago that she was “undecided” on how she’d vote on this, some of our environmental groups jumped, and really put the pressure on her office to vote for this. I’m happy to see she came around to our side. 🙂