'Invisible' Cities Want Bigger Role in Climate Bill

Feeling "invisible", cities are voicing concerns over the bill's makeup and are hoping to alter its course as it heads to the Senate for consideration in September.

"[T]he House-passed climate bill introduced by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) overlooks city experts with experience in adjusting real-life practices, like building and zoning codes, to match shifting climatic problems, they say. Those decisions could require new bridges to be built longer to account for more flooding, for example, or that homes be placed farther away from the sea's rising reach.

'One of the biggest disappointments we have with Waxman-Markey is that cities are absolutely invisible in the bill,' Adam Freed, deputy director of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, said last week."