There were brief hints of potential bipartisan compromise at a Wednesday House hearing on Clean Air Act rules, even as most lawmakers stuck to their usual scripts.
It was unclear whether the overtures made by Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) would lead to the substantive Democratic support needed to move most of the GOP bills past the Senate filibuster.
But his tentative outreach across the aisle stands out at a time when Republicans and Democrats are almost always at loggerheads on air regulations — including most of the attendees at Wednesday’s Energy and Commerce hearing.
“I’m somewhat offended that you would think that we don’t want clean air,” Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said at the Environment Subcommittee hearing. “We all want clean air, but we want to be smart about this, and we want to have policies in fact in place that apply to today and are applicable to today.”
