House Energy and Commerce Committee Continues Debate on Climate-Change Bill

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has just reconvened for another long evening, having spent the day debating changes to mammoth climate-change legislation, still without reaching the bill's halfway point.

On its third day of debate on the bill, the committee had voted on 17 amendments by 6 p.m. They approved a provision to get annual reporting on China and India's efforts to curb emissions, and set a national goal for increasing energy efficiency by 2012.

And the committee rejected several Republican amendments, including one intended to stop the government from imposing regulations on "portable electric spas, hot food cabinets and water dispensers."

Most importantly, the committee was still considering amendments to the second title of the bill. It has four titles in all, and the third -- which sets up a complicated "cap and trade" system for reducing national emissions -- might be the most complicated.

One committee staffer said that tonight's session might even go longer than last night's, which ended about midnight. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has said he wants to pass the bill out of committee by Memorial Day.

-- David Fahrenthold