Oct 18, 2019 - Energy & Climate

Making sense of the Senate climate vote

Ben Geman

Illustration of Congress dome preparing to swing into the globe like a pendulum — Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The Senate rejected Friday a resolution to overturn the EPA's recent decision to scrap Obama-era carbon emissions regulations for power plants and replace them with more modest rules.

Driving the news: 3 Democrats — Kyrsten Sinema, Doug Jones, and Joe Manchin — joined Republicans in opposing the Democratic measure. Susan Collins was the only Republican to support the resolution in the 41-53 vote.

The big picture: This was a messaging vote to hit Trump's regulatory rollbacks and rejection of mainstream climate science — and put Republicans on record about it.

However, the defection of 3 moderate Democrats highlights why passing a big climate bill will be extremely hard even if Democrats somehow eke out a small Senate majority in 2020.

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Making sense of the Senate climate vote

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