Politics

300 Pages Out of Thin Air

By Paul Blumenthal

Today is the day that the House plans to vote on the cap and trade bill that has mysteriously changed this week. Last night, the bill changed again. We are now looking at an additional 300-pages that will be considered as amending H.R. 2998, the replacement bill of origins unknown. This is what the House Rules Committee tells us:

[I]n lieu of the amendment recommended by the Committee on Energy and Commerce now printed in the bill, an amendment in the nature of a substitute consisting of the text of H.R. 2998, modified by the amendment printed in part A of the report of the Committee on Rules accompanying this resolution, shall be considered as adopted.

This means that H.R. 2998, which will be considered as an amendment in the form of a substitute, will include an additional 300 pages approved by the Rules Committee that will not be voted on. Let me see if I can run this down quickly and succinctly:

1. The original bill, H.R. 2454, approximately 1,000 pages, was reported out of the Energy & Commerce Committee.
2. It was replaced this week by H.R. 2998, 1,201 pages, which will be voted on as an amendment in the form of a substitute.
3. The Rules Committee, last night, released a committee report that includes a 300-page amendment to H.R. 2998. This 300-page amendment, the Waxman amendment (#121), is considered as adopted upon an affirmative vote for H.R. 2998, the amendment in the form of the substitute.

This means that we are looking at 300 extra pages added to the bill overnight. Stay tuned for more and go to ReadTheBill.org to tell your congressman that we need time to read the bills.

Full post as published by Sunlight Foundation on June 26, 2009 (boomark / email).