Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) opened a hearing to mark up climate change legislation Tuesday morning, despite the fact that Republican members, unhappy with Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the bill, boycotted the hearing.

When the hearing began there were nine Democrats seated around the table, while all of the seats reserved for Republican members remained empty. After 20 minutes Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) entered the hearing, read the only statement of the day by any Republican and promptly exited the room.

“There’s no reason — no reason at all — to do additional analysis and spend more taxpayers’ dollars doing it, when the work has been done,” Boxer said. “The only reason, it seems to me, one would ask for that is to delay this process [or] not to do it at all.”

In a letter sent Monday to six ranking members of the committee, Boxer said the EPA had confirmed that its analysis of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S 1733) and supporting materials provided to the committee “are totally sufficient and appropriate for our legislative process. In fact, EPA reports that the analysis provided on the bill and chairman’s mark exceeds the analysis typically conducted prior to a mark-up.” To meet the Republican members’ concerns “and in the spirit of collegiality,” Boxer said the committee would recess from mark-up Tuesday afternoon to be briefed by the EPA. She also extended the deadline for proposed amendments until the end of the day.

Boxer and other Democrats said they hoped Republicans would show up for the EPA session and the ongoing mark-up, but — with the exception of Voinovich’s brief appearance — the boycott held firm.

“Since the reason we had EPA come here is that the Republicans don’t believe EPA’s work is satisfactory, where are they?” Boxer said at the conclusion of the EPA briefing.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is likely to combine whatever bill comes out of the committee with other pieces of energy legislation and has committed to doing a “full blown, five-week analysis” of that final bill, Boxer said.

Republicans stayed away from the hearing because “the committee lacks the full analysis with modeling runs of S 1733,” Voinovich said. “Having an EPA briefing does nothing to change that…Even if we did have no problems with the lack of analysis, marking up this bill today seems a little bit premature.”

Top Republicans on six committees with jurisdiction over the climate bill on Tuesday sent a letter to Boxer urging her to delay mark-up. In a statement issued Tuesday morning, Republican members of the committee asked that a full economic analysis of the bill be performed prior to mark-up.

“Asking for EPA analysis is not a stalling tactic,” Voinovich said. “This is not a ruse to prevent this committee from marking up a climate bill. Rather, this is a genuine attempt to make sure that the members of this committee — both the majority and the minority — have the best information available as we debate and amend the bill that will have consequences for every person in our country.”

Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the senior Republican on the committee, first raised the possibility of a boycott to delay approval of the bill last week. Speaking to reporters last Thursday he said, “If we all agree that we don’t have enough analysis, then certainly we want to give enough time to get adequate analysis” (see Daily GPI, Oct. 30).

While at least two minority members are generally required for the committee to have a quorum, Boxer was able to begin the hearing using a provision of the rules that allow hearings to be held as long as long as a majority of committee members are present. The same provision would allow the bill to be voted out of committee if a majority of members are present and vote for the bill.

Boxer wants to pass the climate bill, which would reduce U.S. industry emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 20% by 2020 from 2005 levels, out of her committee promptly to give a boost to an international climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December (see Daily GPI, Oct. 27; Oct. 1).

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