WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, proposed an amendment to the FY2010 Interior Appropriations Act restricting funds for one year from being used to cut off water to California’s Central Valley. Environmentalists have used the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to stem the flow of water to the region's farming community, which produces 13% of the U.S. food supply and over half of the nation’s fruit and vegetables in order to protect a 3-inch fish called the Delta Smelt.

“What started out as a local water problem in California is quickly developing into a food problem for the nation,” said Senator DeMint. “This region is vital to our nation's food supply; it produces most of our fruits and vegetables. If we don’t address this problem now, not only will thousands of people remain out of work in California, but everyone in the country will pay higher food prices.”

“Congress has faced similar problems with the Endangered Species Act before, and each time we intervened to help our people. We must be good stewards of the environment, but our government's priority must be the health and welfare of our people. We cannot allow our food supply and our economy to be held hostage by extreme environmentalists.”

Speaking on the Senate Floor on Thursday, Senator Inhofe welcomed news that Democratic leadership is now publicly saying that consideration of the costly cap-and-trade bill may very well slip to next year. (Watch Inhofe Floor Statement Here) As the leading critic of cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate for nearly a decade, Senator Inhofe has long said Senate passage this year was nearly impossible. That said, Senator Inhofe also warned that the likes of Al Gore, Hollywood, and the United Nations would continue to push Democrats to take up the debate in the Senate. Inhofe vowed again this week that he would keep up the battle and continue to expose the tremendous cost of cap-and-trade legislation.

Moving to assuage concerns about the potential costs of capping U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Barbara Boxer has included an allowance "price collar" provision in climate change legislation she is drafting that would establish maximum and minimum prices for emission allowances in the early years of the cap-and-trade program the bill would create, The Energy Daily has learned.

The draft legislation, which Boxer (D-Calif.) plans to introduce at the end of the month, would establish an initial allowance price ceiling of $28 per metric ton of carbon dioxide and a price floor of $11, with the prices adjusted upwards annually thereafter, according to a source familiar with the measure.

Under the provision, if heavy demand pushed allowance market prices above the $28 ceiling, the government would borrow allowances from future years and sell them to regulated entities at the ceiling price, a move that in theory would reduce demand for allowances and lower prices.

The minimum, or floor, price would ensure that government-administered allowance auctions generate sufficient revenues to fund climate change adaptation efforts, for example, and other climate change-related public benefits.

Details of Boxer's draft emerged as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) signaled Tuesday that climate change legislation is unlikely to come to the Senate floor until late in the year given the Senate's crowded schedule, which includes health care and financial services reform legislation and a number of appropriations bills.

Reid's pronouncement notwithstanding, Boxer is expected to hold hearings on her legislation in early October and move it through her committee later that month.

Boxer signaled in early August she was considering including a price collar in her legislation, a move clearly aimed at addressing concerns by a number of Democratic senators over the past two months that limiting carbon emissions could harm the U.S. economy by driving up the costs of energy and consumer products.