Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) claimed today that Democrats had the support of 54 U.S. Senators for the Climate Tax Bill. Directly contradicting Boxer’s assertion is a letter signed on June 6 by ten Democratic Senators explicitly stating they “cannot support final passage” of the Climate Tax Bill. The letter indicates that Boxer would apparently only have had at most 45 votes today to support final passage of the bill. (Democrat Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who was absent for today’s vote, had previously voted against bringing the bill to the floor on June 2.)

Boxer alleged in a June 6 statement that Democrats “had 54 Senators come down on the side of tackling this crucial issue now” following the cloture vote of 48-36 which effectively killed the bill.

WSJ – Climate Change Collapse – June 06, 2008
Excerpt: Environmentalists are stunned that their global warming agenda is in collapse. Senator Harry Reid has all but conceded he lacks the vote for passage in the Senate and that it's time to move on. Backers of the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill always knew they would face a veto from President Bush, but they wanted to flex their political muscle and build momentum for 2009. That strategy backfired. The green groups now look as politically intimidating as the skinny kid on the beach who gets sand kicked in his face. Those groups spent millions advertising and lobbying to push the cap-and-trade bill through the Senate. But it would appear the political consensus on global warming was as exaggerated as the alleged scientific consensus. "With gasoline selling at $4 a gallon, the Democrats picked the worst possible time to bring up cap and trade," says Dan Clifton, a political analyst for Strategas Research Partners. "This issue is starting to feel like the Hillary health care plan."

Denver Post: Climate is right for another swindle - 'A gargantuan boondoggle' – June 2, 2008

Excerpt: How does Washington plan to resolve our energy problems and control atmospheric temperatures? Well, how do they fix anything? By proposing a gargantuan boondoggle. A "cap and trade" bill, one that will supposedly cut 66 percent of our emissions by 2050, is being debated in Congress this week.

This morning, The United States Chamber of Commerce, representing over 300 million businesses across the nation, released a letter condemning the economic effects of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Bill.

Global temperatures continued to slide in May 2008. Meteorologist Anthony Watts details the cooling temperatures in a report titled “Global Temperature Dives in May.” The new global temperature data reveals a whopping three quarters of a degree Celsius drop in temperatures since January 2007. Watts reported late yesterday that the cooling is “equal in magnitude to the generally agreed upon ‘global warming signal’ of the last 100 years.”

Mr. President, I thank the managers of the bill and the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee for the debate that has gone on. The chairman was opining a few moments ago that the debate today had been focused on gas and high gas prices and that somehow her bill was going to push gas prices even higher. That may happen. I don't know that. What I do know today is that the American consumer is fed up with $4 gas, and anything we do that would even risk pushing gas prices higher ought to make the American consumer mighty unhappy.

Mr. SPECTER. I thank the Chair. It has been a little tough getting these 15 minutes, but I am glad to have them. MR. WARNER. The Senator showed courtesy in getting them. Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I sought recognition to discuss a number of amendments which I will be proposing to offer. I intend to offer an amendment on emission caps because of my concern that the emission caps which are set in the Lieberman-Warner bill cannot be obtained.