Carbon crackdown

After years of talking about the threat of climate change while Congress did nothing about it, a bipartisan coalition of senators has finally produced a prototype piece of legislation that aims to reduce industrial emissions of greenhouse gases heating the globe.The United States is the world’s biggest producer of carbon dioxide, one of the compounds fueling rising temperatures and seas.

The Low Carbon Economy Act co-sponsored by Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is likely only the first version of what will become federal law, but it includes most of the elements necessary to strike at the root cause of climate change. While business interests and environmentalists might quibble over too much of this or too little of that in the legislation, the majority of Americans in the middle should be encouraged that at least some progress is being made on Capitol Hill in attempting to deal with the problem realistically.

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