By The River

U.S. Rep. Tim Holden, D-Schuylkill, who is my congressman, and U.S. Rep. Todd Platts, R-York, who represents a district on the other side of the Susquehanna River, both voted against the Obama Administration's climate/energy bill that passed the House narrowly on Friday.

With Platts, what can you do? Only eight Republicans were willing to buck the tight GOP party discipline and vote in favor of the first serious U.S. effort to stop global warming. That party is firmly controlled by the energy industry and the global warming deniers.

But Holden was a disappointment. I've searched for any statement by him defending his vote, but haven't been able to find one. I imagine he voted against the bill in a misguided effort to save anthracite coal mining jobs in his district. If mining jobs make up more than 1 percent of the total jobs in his district, I'd be surprised, but you can never rule out an attack of "magical thinking" up there about reviving the anthracite coal industry.

Holden knows he can go against the wishes of liberal Democrats like me because we know that if he is replaced by a Republican, it will be some Bible-thumper who wants to cut taxes for the wealthy. But Holden should also consider what votes like this will do to his efforts in the future to get help from the Obama Administration on any number of other issues.

But at least it passed, and now it goes on to the Senate. U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter had better beware about voting against this bill. His likely Democratic primary challenger next year, Rep. Joe Sestak, was among the Pennsylvania Democrats who voted in favor of the global warming bill. Specter's poll numbers still show him leading Sestak, but with a large number of undecideds. Specter can't take Democratic votes for granted.