Is Congress Finally Ready to Go Green?

As concern over global warming became more and more prominent in the U.S. over the past several years — in the media, in opinion polls, in business and in state governments — the one place where the issue seemed all but invisible was the one place that could really do something about it: Congress.

But that began to change in 2007, and nowhere more so than in the Senate's key committee on the environment and public works, which drafts much of the country's environmental legislation. Up until last January, the committee was chaired by Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican who memorably called global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." When the Democrats took over Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, however, the chairperson's gavel was handed over to Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, and the floodgates opened.

Boxer began a series of open hearings on the science of global warming, giving airtime to the sort of experts — including former Vice President Al Gore — who had been suppressed under Inhofe. "As soon as the change took place, I realized that this was going to be one of my number one goals," says Boxer. "Elections have consequences, and this was one of the consequences."

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