The Environment and Public Works Committee of the US Senate was scheduled to begin mark-up on the Boxer-Kerry climate bill today, but was thwarted as all seven Republican members made good on last week’s threat to boycott the meeting. Members of the Republican minority also boycotted the committee’s October 27 open hearing on climate and energy policies related to the bill.

Leading today’s boycott were Sens. George Voinovich (R-OH) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN). In threatening the move last week, Voinovich called for additional review of the Boxer-Kerry bill by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To date, the EPA has released a short analysis of the bill, but in agreeing to a more in-depth study indicated that it would require five weeks or more.

While there may appear to be some utility in requesting a more thorough evaluation, it is not unreasonable to view Voinovich’s call as little more than a delaying tactic. Assuming the bill ever leaves committee, it would go before the full Senate, where it is most certain to be debated at length and modified through numerous amendments — a process that would render irrelevant a more extensive review of the legislation in its current form.

Furthermore, the Senate bill borrows heavily from legislation passed earlier this year by the House of Representatives and which the EPA has reviewed in depth. The abbreviated EPA review of the Senate version, released two weeks ago and which Republicans deem insufficient, analyzed the differences between the bills, including their cost implications.

Last night, in an attempt to accommodate Republican concerns and avert today’s boycott, committee Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) sent a letter to ranking members of the minority:

To meet your concerns, however, and in the spirit of collegiality, I have arranged for a recess of the markup to take place Tuesday, November 3, at 2:30 pm, so that EPA can be available to answer questions from EPW members on its analysis. In addition, we are offering to extend the deadline for first-degree amendments on the Minority side until close of business tomorrow.

Apparently, boycotting members were more interested in carrying out their threat than in having their questions answered by the EPA — or in participating in the work of the committee by submitting their amendments. Sen. Voinovich was the only minority committee member to appear at today’s meeting, which he attended long enough to deliver a 15-minute monologue and then left.

Ironically, Chairman Boxer has the votes needed to move the bill to the Senate floor, where some Republicans have indicated they would support the legislation and some Democrats have expressed opposition. What Boxer lacks — and what the boycott aims to deny her — is a quorum to conduct the vote that would move it out of committee.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) outlined exactly this strategy in threatening the earlier, October 27 boycott:

Although the ratio of committee Democrats to Republicans is 12 to 7, under committee rules two Republicans must attend a markup in order to have a quorum.

We’re not being unreasonable,” Inhofe said. “The only leverage we have is the quorum leverage, and if we get stonewalled, we’ll use it.

Words like “unreasonable” and “stonewalling” sound odd coming from Inhoff. The specifics of the Boxer-Kerry bill aside, Inhoff’s reputation as an outspoken denier of climate change is well established. In recent remarks, he announced plans to lead a one-man “truth squad” to Copenhagen next month to advance his opinion that climate change is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people .”

Not to be overlooked is that today’s boycott followed an address by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to a joint session of Congress, in which she urged Congress and the Obama administration to act boldly and quickly to address global warming.

In December the world will look to us, to the Americans and the Europeans… We all know, we have no time to lose.

Obviously not everyone in the audience was listening. And thanks in part to today’s obstruction, chances are slim to none that, when the world looks to America next month, they’ll see anything resembling leadership or clear commitment by the United States to address global climate change.