{"id":542719,"date":"2010-04-24T14:10:14","date_gmt":"2010-04-24T18:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-04-24-graham-says-hes-going-to-bail-on-the-climate-bill\/"},"modified":"2010-04-24T14:10:14","modified_gmt":"2010-04-24T18:10:14","slug":"graham-says-hes-going-to-bail-on-the-climate-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/542719","title":{"rendered":"Graham says he&#8217;s going to bail on the climate bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tby David Roberts <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wonkroom.thinkprogress.org\/2010\/03\/18\/kerry-graham-lieberman-rumors\/\"><\/a>Photo: Wonk RoomI&#8217;m supposed to be on vacation, but this is pretty ridiculous: it looks like an ass-covering decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is about to scuttle efforts to bring a climate\/energy bill to the floor this year.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>As Juliet Eilperin <a href=\"http:\/\/views.washingtonpost.com\/climate-change\/post-carbon\/2010\/04\/sen_graham_threatens_to_halt_work_on_climate_and_energy_bill.html\">reports in WaPo<\/a>, Sen. Lindsey Graham says he&#8217;s about to bail on the bill he&#8217;s been working on for months:<\/p>\n<p>I want to bring to your attention what appears to be a decision by the Obama Administration and Senate Democratic leadership to move immigration instead of energy. Unless their plan substantially changes this weekend, I will be unable to move forward on energy independence legislation at this time. I will not allow our hard work to be rolled out in a manner that has no chance of success.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s stupid to have a Dem majority leader from a red state, for the simple reason that his personal political fortunes are frequently going to run counter to the party&#8217;s. Reid is facing a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rasmussenreports.com\/public_content\/politics\/elections2\/election_2010\/election_2010_senate_elections\/nevada\/election_2010_nevada_senate\">perilous reelection battle<\/a> in Nevada this year. He&#8217;s behind by double digits and desperately needs to mobilize his state&#8217;s large Hispanic population. So he&#8217;s trying to jam immigration through next, despite the fact that there&#8217;s no legislative language and nobody thinks it has a chance of passing. As Jon Chait <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tnr.com\/blog\/jonathan-chait\/or-maybe-the-dems-will-abandon-climate-change\">says<\/a>, Reid&#8217;s flail could end up sinking both bills.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t imagine Kerry is happy about this. And I can&#8217;t believe Obama (or Rahm) will stand by and let Reid do it. The administration has reaffirmed multiple time in past weeks that they want a comprehensive climate\/energy bill this year. Obama himself called it a &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=126055215\">foundational priority<\/a>.&#8221; Is he willing to let it get lost in the shuffle in a futile bid to save Reid&#8217;s ass? If he does he&#8217;ll either look powerless over his own party or insincere about his own professed values and priorities. This is test of leadership.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-04-23-federal-climate-policy-should-preempt-state-regional-initiatives\/\">Federal climate policy should preempt state and regional initiatives<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/2010-04-23-astute-climate-bill-analysis-from-dj-biz-markie\/\">Astute climate bill analysis from DJ Biz Markie<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.grist.org\/article\/nypd-trashes-hundreds-of-bikes-in-security-response\/\">NYPD trashes hundreds of bikes in security response<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=a266f4bd929554c5ecf806168668548f&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=a266f4bd929554c5ecf806168668548f&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"http:\/\/ib.adnxs.com\/seg?add=24595&#038;t=2\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by David Roberts Photo: Wonk RoomI&#8217;m supposed to be on vacation, but this is pretty ridiculous: it looks like an ass-covering decision by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is about to scuttle efforts to bring a climate\/energy bill to the floor this year. As Juliet Eilperin reports in WaPo, Sen. Lindsey Graham says he&#8217;s about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":765,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/765"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}