Religious leaders support reworked U.S. Senate climate-change bill

Published: 2008-05-23

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Christian and Jewish religious leaders May 21 formally threw their support behind a reworked U.S. Senate bill that addresses environmental climate change. During a media briefing on Capitol Hill, Bishop Thomas G. Wenski -- chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace -- joined bill co-sponsors Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., and John W. Warner, R-Va., and other Christian and Jewish religious leaders to discuss what he called "ground-breaking legislation" that also takes the poor into consideration when combating global warming. Though other Christian and Jewish religious leaders wholeheartedly pledged their support for the reworked bill, Bishop Wenski stressed that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops does not lead an interest group but a church. "We are not here to endorse the many details in this or any other legislation" but applaud lawmakers' efforts to consider the impact climate-change mandates will have on the low-income populace, said the bishop, head of the Diocese of Orlando, Fla.

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