Cap and Trade Debate Makes Boucher Vulnerable

Here's the Washington Independent:

Kilgore would be a great recruit. His brother won the 9th District by 12 points, his best showing in the entire state, during a lackluster run for governor in a bad Republican year. In 2008, John McCain carried the district over Barack Obama by 19 points. It’s the kind of seat that the GOP stopped targeting while playing defense in 2006 and 2008, but Boucher’s support for cap-and-trade legislation has it looking again.

And here's RedState.com's take on a Kilgore candidacy:

Virginia state Representative Terry Kilgore may run against subcommittee chair Rick Boucher - who was long thought invulnerable.

Boucher Set to Flip Against Cap and Trade?

This is fascinating given how much Boucher seems to be in the driver's seat with the Cap and Trade debate in the House. At a town hall meeting Boucher indicated he wasn't really for the measure:

U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher voted for cap-and-trade legislation but said
hedoesn’t endorse the House-passed version of the bill…

“I voted for it because I had to do that to be part of the process andto make the changes that have been made,” Boucher said of the bill that passedby a seven-vote margin in the House and is now being considered by the Senate…

What is driving his involvement, said Boucher, is the U.S. Supreme Courtdetermined two years ago that greenhouse gases are pollutants.

“As a consequence of that decision, the Environmental Protection Agency is,for all intents and purposes, effectively required to regulate greenhouse gases,…” Boucher said.

“The debate about whether or not we will have regulation is over. So the only
question is will EPA regulate or … will we have congressionalregulation that
does balance economic effect against environmental effect? Giventhat choice,
industry would rather have Congress do this. Industry needs andwants a bill to
pass.”

[...]

Boucher added the easy thing for him to do with the cap-and-trade billwould have been to just vote no.

“And I could have done that,” he said. “But that would have been acowardly thing to do, and it would not have served well the interests of thedistrict I represent
with its large coal industry and the fact that so much ofthe electricity we
consume is coal-generated. ... I would have been out of the debate.”

The Kingsport Times, in the headline for the story from which the above quote has been snipped, suggests Boucher will seek further legislative changes should the measure come back to the House, but I saw no indication of where Boucher said that in the body of the article.

Read More @: http://www.timesnews.net/article.php?id=9016458

Cross Posted @ www.cyberhillbilly.com