Senate panel tries to advance climate bill

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Democrats on a key committee kicked off a debate on reducing U.S. carbon dioxide pollution on Tuesday despite a boycott by Republicans who want to delay climate change legislation.

In a day that saw political maneuvering by both political parties, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer ended the first work session telling reporters she sensed a "fundamental shift" in the debate because of a letter she received from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The business group, which has long opposed climate change legislation, said it wanted to engage in a "new conversation" on the issue.

It called proposals by Democratic Senator John Kerry and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham a "positive, practical and realistic framework for legislation".

But it did not embrace the central approach of the legislation before Boxer's committee: government mandating carbon dioxide emission reductions on industry.

Republicans on the environment committee boycotted Tuesday's sessions, saying Congress needed more information about the impact of the legislation before moving ahead.

But most of them have long opposed the carbon-reduction bill and instead want to expand nuclear power in the United States, along with encouraging more oil drilling, which would do nothing to attack global warming problems.

SENATE VOTE UNLIKELY BEFORE COPENHAGEN

Democrats countered that the Environmental Protection Agency had issued hundreds of thousands of pages of analysis underpinning climate bills, which would force utilities, oil refineries and factories to cut carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

Kerry acknowledged many changes were in store for the bill, but told reporters there was no need to "waste time" on further analysis.

Boxer said her committee would try to resume work on the legislation -- with the ultimate goal of putting it to a vote -- at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT) on Wednesday.

She declined to say whether she would delay action if Republicans continued their boycott.

She has been aiming to win committee approval this month, before an international global warming summit in Copenhagen that begins on December 7. Officials are meeting in Barcelona this week in one of the final work sessions before Copenhagen.

This kind of bickering is not unusual in Congress and Democrats in the past have waged their own boycotts before allowing measures to advance.

But the climate change legislation faces particularly tough odds in the Senate, where several moderate Democrats, many from coal states, have also complained.