Legislation requiring significant cuts in emissions from electric power plants, including carbon dioxide, squeaked out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee by a vote of 10 to 9 on June 27, over the objections of the Bush administration. The bill (S. 556), sponsored by Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-VT), the committee’s chairman, would require emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) to be reduced by 83 percent, mercury by 90 percent, and carbon dioxide (CO2) by 23 percent, all by 2008. This would be achieved partly through an emissions trading system that allocates each electric power plant an emissions limit. If the plants reduce emissions below their designated limit, they could sell any unused portion of their allowance. Plants could also buy emissions credits from others, enabling them to exceed their original limit. "Trading will not be allowed, however, if it enables a power plant to pollute at a level that damages public health or the environment and trading of mercury pollution allowances is strictly prohibited," according to Jeffords. The administration favors slower and smaller reductions in SO2, NOx, and mercury -- which contribute to smog, acid rain and respiratory disease, resulting in thousands of deaths a year -- and opposes any effort to crack down on carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas released in fossil fuel combustion, which is largely responsible for global warming; power plants account for 40 percent of such emissions in the United States. Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a report documenting the devastating effects of global warming, including rising sea levels, the destruction of ecosystems, and more frequent heat waves, but the administration has nonetheless remained steadfast in its opposition to CO2 controls. Instead, the administration continues to push its feeble Clear Skies Initiative," which offers only voluntary measures to address carbon dioxide, and calls for legislation mandating reductions in SO2, NOx, and mercury that environmental organizations contend would be achieved anyway under the Clean Air Act. The administration still has yet to translate its February initiative into legislative form, leaving its commitment open to question, but one thing is clear: "The door is closed on carbon in multipollutant legislation," as EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman told BNA, a Washington trade publication. Eight Democrats, along with Jeffords and Sen. Lincoln Chaffee (R-RI), supported the Jeffords bill, while Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) joined eight Republicans in opposition.