Don't get your hopes up about a Lieberman-Dole climate change bill.
In Raleigh today for a meeting with the Disabled American Veterans group, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole told Dome she was dismayed that the Climate Security Act failed in the Senate today.
"It's unfortunate, but that's it for now," said Dole, who had voted to move the bill forward.
Since Republican co-sponsor John Warner will be retiring at the end of the session, Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman is reportedly looking for a new member of the GOP to push a revamped bill in next year's session. Dole was asked if she would be interested.
"I think we have to wait and see how things evolve, what happens," she said. "You've got to really have an opportunity to look at the language."
Dole was a cosponsor of the bill introduced in October, but she was not the lead Republican.
She said she hopes a future bill will include provisions to promote nuclear power and exploration of potential oil fields "in areas where people want it" — specifically the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
"People don't want it in North Carolina, but in Alaska they're begging for it," she said.
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Re: Dole: More nuclear power, domestic oil
How about 3 ANWR's-worth of oil?
That's what bumping the CAFE standards up from 27.5 mpg to 35 mpg (should have been 45, but I'll take what we got for now) will represent for us by 2020: a reduction of our oil usage by 2.5 million barrels per day.
note: that's also around 900,000 tons of c02 not emitted per day...