The March 13 deadline for participation in the April conference on how Congress should go about setting a mandatory trading program to control U.S. greenhouse gas emissions has passed.  The Senate Energy Committee asked for the comments as part of its bipartisan effort to find common ground on what kind of climate change legislation could be enacted into law.

The committee received 160+ e-mails with 500+ documents from industry, academia, NGOs, religious organizations, scientists and trade groups.  Republican and Democratic committee staff are reviewing these ideas and will select panelists for the April 4 global warming conference by March 28.

Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), the committee's chairman and ranking member, invited interested parties to submit comments as part of the committee's bipartisan effort to find common ground on what kind of climate change bill could be enacted into law.  Last month, the senators issued a "white paper" that included four basic questions about design elements of a mandatory market-based greenhouse gas regulatory system. A quick review of  the  the responses indicates that many of them support  a mandatory program, while others oppose such a program but offer constructive suggestions on how to develop one. All comments are posted on the Energy Committee website <http://energy.senate.gov/public/>.