Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-Mass.)
Is climate change legislation dead? Not quite, but it does face a new and unexpected hurdle called Senator-elect Scott Brown (R- Mass.).
Staffers on Capitol Hill suggested to GER that last night’s stunning reversal is a game changer. “It is certainly going to be an uphill climb to get a strong climate change bill passed,” one staffer with the Senate’s Committee on Energy and Natural Resources tells us. “Democrats are moving forward with their agenda, but Brown’s election is complicating things,” adds another Democrat Hill staffer.
For starters, Brown’s win over Martha Coakley destroys the Democrat’s filibuster-proof majority. That could sink climate change legislation — or at least one with a cap-and-trade provision — into never ending Republican-led filibusters.
As it stands, last summer the House passed the Waxman-Markey bill with its cap-and-trade provision. On the Senate side, three separate energy and climate change bills are being considered. Two (the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham proposal and the Cantwell-Collins CLEAR bill) have some form of cap-and-trade system. One, authored by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), is an energy bill that seeks to spur investments in cleantech. That bill does not have a cap-and-trade provision.
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) remains optimistic (officially) on getting the Senate to vote and pass some form of climate change legislation this year. He says the issue transcends politics and should get Republicans to cross the aisle. One already has, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
In a statement emailed to GER by his staff, Senator Kerry says:
There’s overwhelming public support and this can be a bi-partisan issue. It doesn’t have to be polarized. Just listen to a conservative like Senator Graham or business leaders from across the ideological spectrum. This is the single best opportunity to create jobs, reduce pollution, and stop sending billions overseas for foreign oil from countries that would do us harm. Sell those arguments and you’ve got a winning issue.
Will Senator Graham be the only Republican willing to make climate change (and cap-and-trade) a “winning issue?” Things don’t look good considering that the bi-partisanship invoked by Kerry has been none-existent since President Barack Obama’s swearing-in, just a year ago today. The reality is that despite Graham’s support, Republicans are hesitant to back a climate change bill or anything that seeks to cut or price CO2.
Just yesterday, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said that she would introduce a Congressional Disapproval Resolution that would block enforcement of the Clean Air Act for greenhouse gases. She introduced a similar amendment in September that failed.
As we wrote yesterday, this would in effect prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating and cutting down emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, a step EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson recently said the agency was willing and able to take.
Ironically, the threat of a tighter and stricter regulatory regime led by EPA, a prospect that’s been described as a “bureaucratic nightmare,” could actually convince some Republicans to come around in support of the more flexible and compromise-friendly legislative route.
Will cap-and-trade make it into climate change legislation supported by Senate Republicans? Maybe, but then expect carbon-dependent industries to get lots of free emissions permits. More importantly, can we even expect a Senate vote this year?
“The ball is in Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) court,” says the Energy and Natural Resources staffer, who points out that Reid controls the agenda. It remains to be seen whether he will feel he has the votes to present the bill for a full Senate vote.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia