Oregon Public Broadcasting

In a nail-biter, the U.S. House voted Thursday, 219-212, to approve a major climate change bill.

The bill would set up a carbon emissions cap and trade system, as well as setting a renewable energy target for 2020.

And as Ethan Lindsey reports, Oregon’s legislators won a fight to include a provision in the bill for woody biomass.

Woody biomass, including trees from Oregon’s forests, could become a key energy source under this bill.

Canby Democrat Kurt Schrader says he was going to vote ‘no’. But Democratic leaders changed the bill, making it easier to take trees from national forests.

Kurt Schrader: “We now have an opportunity to harvest woody biomass out of our federal forests.”

The bill now says biomass can come from ‘late succession’ trees – it’s not entirely clear what that means.

Hood River Republican Greg Walden’s office says the change improved the bill, but not enough – Walden voted no.

Democrats David Wu and Earl Blumenauer both voted yes.

Springfield Democrat Peter Defazio was the outlier – he voted no, saying cap and trade would be too expensive.

The bill heads to the Senate for an even more uncertain future.