The New York Times, in an editorial, said the Senate had a duty to play the lead in laying a foundation for a comprehensive, legally binding climate change treaty in Copenhagen by providing the proper political signals.
Wrote the Times: "We cannot rewrite the Bush years any more than we can persuade the Chinese of the merits of a binding treaty to control greenhouse gases. What the United States can do is assume responsibility for its own emissions, and this the Senate has manifestly failed to do. It is asking a lot of the Senate to address health care and climate change at the same time, although the House managed to do both. It is also true that a preoccupied White House has applied almost no pressure. But the indecisiveness of the Senate's Democratic leaders is worrisome, as is the Republicans' reflexive and virtually unanimous hostility to anything that challenges the way this country produces and uses energy."
The Times wrote that Republican Senators "have behaved terribly" with only a few exceptions. The Times wrote: "They refused en masse to show up when [Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara] Boxer tried to get a committee vote on a bill, claiming they had been denied an analysis of the bill's impact on the economy. When Ms. Boxer summoned officials to provide such an analysis, they boycotted again."
The Times acknowledged that the Senate was unlikely to produce legislation in the three weeks left available to the Copenhagen talks, but it offered a "modest suggestion. That is for Mr. Obama to appear quickly and publicly with Ms. Boxer, [Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff] Bingaman, [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid, and climate stalwarts like John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham (a Republican outlier) and announce that climate change will be an early order of business next year and that he will not rest until he gets a bill."
