Bill Nelson: “I was pleased to cosponsor the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act shortly after it was introduced last October, and I…”

“I was pleased to cosponsor the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act shortly after it was introduced last October, and I followed its progress through the Environment and Public Works Committee with interest. Today, the full Senate will begin considering that bill, and Senator Boxer, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, will offer a substitute amendment that she has worked out with Senators Lieberman and Warner. I have a question for my friend from Connecticut regarding this substitute amendment. As the Senator from Connecticut knows, many rural electric cooperatives in this country serve the role of local distribution companies. The committee-reported version of the Climate Security Act included rural electric cooperatives among the local distribution companies that receive emission allowances over the entire 42-year life of the program. In Florida, electric cooperatives serve more than 1,000,000 Floridians in 58 of our 67 counties. Most of these rural electric cooperatives own fossil fuel-fired powerplants. I was recently in Florida and held a series of town hall meetings across the State and heard from rural cooperatives that are concerned about the way emission allocations are distributed under the substitute amendment.”