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Last-minute Tweaks To House Climate Bill

Brad Johnson takes stock of the final version of the House energy and climate bill (well, final unless it gets altered further by whatever floor amendments come up today). As we noted a few days ago, and as Steve Pearlstein discusses today, the bill was weakened slightly to appease Collin Peterson and some of the farm-state Dems. But there were also a slew of additional changes that were made, and many of them actually strengthened the climate provisions in this bill. Among other things, the federal government would be required to get a certain percentage of its power from renewable sources.

In any case, it'd be awfully nice if we had more time to read through this 1,200-page bill before it got voted on. (Sure, most members of Congress won't read it no matter what, but some of us would!) But the House wants to finish this up before they leave for the July 4 recess, so everything's being accelerated.

--Bradford Plumer