Boxer adds tax relief, deficit reduction to climate-change bill
Move is an effort to assuage fears that enviroment bill would be harmful to weakened economy.
WASHINGTON – Sen. Barbara Boxer has added an $802 billion tax cut to her Environment and Public Works Committee's global warming bill which is set to be on the Senate floor right after Congress' Memorial Day recess.
Boxer called the reworking of the measure "a consensus document." The new bill also includes $955 billion worth of deficit reduction.
Both the tax relief and the deficit reduction funds are an effort by Boxer and fellow supporters of sweeping climate change legislation to make good on her promise that the bill will help, not hurt the economy and that consumers will not bear the brunt of the efforts to curb greenhouse gases.
The bill is estimated to reduce total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by up to 66 percent by 2050.
The money in the measure – which would be paid out through 2050, the life of the legislation – would come from the so-called cap-and-trade system under which carbon credits would be bought and sold by utilities, manufacturers and other companies that emit carbon dioxide.
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