Opposition to H.R. 2454 likely growing in U.S. Senate

In today's U.S. News and World Report, columnist Peter Roff (Thomas Jefferson Street blog) posits that opposition to H.R. 2454, aka "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," is swelling in the U.S. Senate. His article Numbers Adding Up Against Obama's "Cap and Trade" Bill in the Senate (posted July 07, 2009 11:31 AM ET) points to both the thin margin of passage in the House and the statistical distribution of those House votes among State delegations as being among the indicators.

A simple majority in the House is 216. A total of 219 Representatives voted in favor of H.R. 2545, 212 voted against.

Of 255 Democrats in the House, 44 of them (a little over 17%) voted against the bill, while one did not vote.

Political heat is being taken from within their own party by 8 House Republicans for voting in favor of the bill, which passed by only 4 votes. Had only half of those Republicans voted "no" the bill would have failed. Two Republicans did not cast a vote.

View a statistical summary and "who voted how" in the roll call of votes here. ¹

Download the entire 1428 pages of H.R. 2454 (PDF, 2.24 mb), as passed by the House of Representatives on July 6, here. ²

Opponents of H.R. 2454, sometimes familiarly called the "Energy Tax," "Cap and Trade" or "Cap and Tax" bill, are pressing hard for its defeat in the Senate.

—Mark Gresham


[1] from govtrack.us
[2] Document certified by Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Governement Printing Office with a GeoTrust CA from Adobe.