Believe it or not there was other news happening last week besides the sad, untimely death of pop artist Michael Jackson. As a matter of fact, there was major news. And, as a result, there’s a good chance you didn’t hear anything at all about one of the most important pieces of legislation passed in the House of Representatives last week.

The House of Representatives has been talking about passing legislation to restrict the use of energy in the effort to alleviate global warming for quite some time now. Reports say that Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) has been working on this legislation for 30 years! (He’s been around for a long time!) In any case, suddenly, last Friday at 3:09 AM, Representative Waxman introduced a 300-page amendment to the already 1,200-page Energy Bill that was to be voted on that night.

Here’s some of the dialogue that took place among some of the Republican and Democrat leaders in the House when Waxman dropped off the 300-page packet! Apparently, the additional pages weren’t readily available for members of the House to read even if they wanted some late night reading:

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the bill’s sponsors, finally rose to say that a single copy of the current version of the bill was available at the speaker’s desk and on the Internet, which members would have to leave the floor to access.

I find it hard to believe anyone had read the 1,200 page document before the additional 300 pages were added. I find it hard to believe that the additional pages were even perused, much less thoroughly examined before the vote. Why the hurry? This kind of push and rush seems unusual for our kind of government, a representative democracy. It’s hard to not question any kind of legislation that’s being added at the last minute and pushed through for a vote in the middle of the night on a Friday.

So, what is the legislation? Essentially, companies would have a limit as to how much greenhouse gases they can emit. If they exceed that limit, they’d have to buy “credits” from other companies who didn’t use up all their allotted portion of energy. This tax on energy will simply be added to consumer costs, and in the middle of this recession, it could mean loss of more jobs, higher prices at the pump, and another inevitable hit on Americans’ wallets.

Proponents of the legislation say it’s a long overdue measure to address the global warming crisis by penalizing those companies who use more energy. Opponents suggest that a unilateral move by the United States doesn’t alleviate the “global” problem of emissions. Quite the opposite: Countries like China would take advantage of this self-inflicted economic wound to increase their own production to bring consumers lower-priced goods.

Regardless of your stand on the global warming issue, we cannot help but ask whether Congress should have slowed down the process for a vote on any piece of legislation, much less one with such major ramifications. Should Congressional representatives be expected or even required to read legislation before voting on it? Should there be a more reasonable timeline for voting on a bill once it’s been presented? Should last minute bills, especially ones brought in the middle of the night, be scrutinized a little more closely?

Do you agree with the House’s quick vote because of the need to help the planet? Or do you expect differently from your representatives?

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(Original photo by Rob Pongsajapan, used under Creative Commons license.)