WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats have defeated a Republican effort to ban the Environmental Protection Agency from controlling the gases blamed for global warming.
In a 50-50 vote, the Senate rejected a measure by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma. It would have repealed a 2009 finding by federal scientists that climate change caused by greenhouse gases endangers human health and prevented the agency from using existing law to regulate them. The amendment – to a small business bill – needed 60 votes to pass.
The Republican-controlled House is expected to pass an identical bill later Wednesday. The White House has threatened to veto it.
Senate Democrats proposed less aggressive prohibitions on the EPA. The most votes any of the three alternatives received was 12.
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