California's Attempts to Regulate CO2 To Be Torpedoed with Jane Harman's Help?

Per the Sacramento Bee:

The debate over legislation to curb global warming opened Thursday in the House, where one of the biggest battles will be whether to sacrifice California's landmark law to institute a national standard.

The opening salvos came at a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's energy and air quality panel, which released last week a draft bill that is heavy on development of new fuels but weak on reductions in carbon dioxide emissions, which most scientists believe are the leading cause of global warming.

The most controversial feature of the draft measure is the pre-emption of California's tough new law to lower emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Pelosi's working around the committee:

The regional divisions over global warming legislation were an early frustration to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco. Realizing that Dingell and the energy committee were likely to be a problem on enacting anything like the California law, Pelosi created a separate global warming panel headed by Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

But there are a bunch of Democrats on the committee who are apparently going to let California's law get nixed because they don't want their committee to be pre-empted.

But there may be enough votes to pass such a bill out of the energy committee. Waxman wrote a letter to committee leaders chastising the bill Thursday, and it was signed by 11 other committee Democrats. But together those 12 critics don't add up to even half the full committee's Democrats, and represent only about a quarter of the 57-member committee.

Committee approval of the bill could present Pelosi with a huge political dilemma.

Even fellow California Democrat Jane Harman of Venice, who supports retention of California's law, said she opposes any legislative maneuvering that would constitute an "end run" around the committee -- a signal to Pelosi that she will not have Harman's vote for an alternative global warming package coming out of the Markey panel or the House Rules Committee that the speaker controls.

Harman's all big on her phasing out of incandescent lightbulbs, but she'll let Dingell stop California from taking the real lead on global warming? You've got to be kidding me. If she cares about the future of our environment, she'll accept Pelosi's offense of going around the committee as a necessary move for the greater good.

I hope this isn't about getting back at Pelosi for giving Intel Chair to someone else. Not with our environment in the balance.