WILL THE SENATE DO ENERGY AND CLIMATE?

Obama focuses on Senate after first climate win
Jeff Mason (w/Will Dunham), June 29, 2009 (Reuters)
and
And Now, Climate Bill's Supporters Try Counting to 60 in Senate
Darren Samuelsohn (w/Allison Winter), June 29, 2009 (NY Times)

SUMMARY
With Al Franken finally cleared to legally assume Minnesota's 2nd Senate seat, the Democrats have achieved Senatorial nirvana. 60 votes gives Democrats the chance to break the minority's tyranny-by-filibuster - if they can find a center to hold together their coalition's centrifugal forces.

The landmark energy/climate legislation narrowly passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last Friday cannot become law until it is affirmed by the U.S. Senate and it will not be affirmed if the minority can convince 1 of those 60 votes in the Democratic coalition to vote with them, on threat of a business-stopping filibuster, against bringing energy/legislation to the Senate floor.

President Obama has expressed confidence the Senate will ratify the House bill, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA) of 2009 (H.R. 2454), co-authored by Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass), Chair of the House Energy Subcommittee. The Waxman-Markey bill would create the first-ever national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES, requiring regulated to obtain 15% of their power from New Energy sources by 2020, and the first-ever national mandatory greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) cap&trade system, requiring the nation to cut GhGs 17% by 2020 and 83% by 2050.

The President will use the H.R. 2454 victory in the House to take a more central role in climate change talks at the upcoming G8 meeting in Italy but will not be able to sustain his leadership position without the Senate’s approval of his legislative agenda. Mr. Obama would like to have a U.S. energy and climate law behind him so as to maintain the authority of leadership through the pivotal December Copenhagen United Nations summit. The nations of the world will meet in Copenhagen at the end of this year to approve a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocols. The President wants the U.S. to lead as the world decides how to carry forward the international fight against global climate change.

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Most Congress watchers consider Senate approval of an energy/climate bill in doubt. Obama political advisor David Axelrod recently said the administration does not at present have the necessary 60 Senate votes to pass the legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev), who has more control of the Senate’s agenda than anybody else, has said Senators will take up the energy and climate bill in the Fall, after they have dealt with the Supreme Court vacancy and the national health insurance issue (and possibly immigration reform). Senate rules, however, allow impediments in the legislative process, making a definite agenda and timetable moot.

In any case, there will likely be debate while the the Senate’s version of cap&trade is formulated in Senator Barbara Boxer’s Environment and Public Works Committee this summer. Boxer will begin holding hearings and briefings in July and plans to be in markup by the end of the month.

The Senate Agriculture, Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources, Finance and Foreign Relations Committees will have a go at the legislation before it reaches the full Senate for debate by the Reid-proclaimed September 18 deadline. Senator Jeff Bingaman’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved parts of the legislation earlier in June.

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Following their successful fight for Waxman-Markey, House leaders did what they could to press the Senate but there is not much they can do now.

In recent years, a narrow minority of Senate recalcitrants working on behalf of the fossil fuels and nuclear industries and big utilities and weilding the power of the filibuster blocked significant New Energy and climate change legislation, including a House-approved RES in 2007 and a 2008 cap&trade proposal sponsored by John McCain (R-Ariz), John Warner (R-Virg) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn).

There is a minority that would do it this way. Will they prevail? (click to enlarge)

COMMENTARY
Democratic leaders in the White House and the Congress and mainstream environmentalists hailed ACESA as a landmark achievement of historic proportions. Congressional Republicans and conservatives call it “cap and tax” and say it will add to the financial burdens of U.S. utility ratepayers. Activist environmentalists say the bill was rendered impotent by compromises with the fossil fuels and nuclear industries and will not help the U.S. meet the challenges of global climate change.

The difficulty in assembling 60 Senate votes is that regional loyalties are stronger than party affiliations when it comes to energy policy and regions are not disproportionately represented. Because each state has an equal 2 Senate votes, the recalcitrant Southeastern and Western conservative states, though outnumbered, can effectively block progress by the more liberal and populous and progressive urban regions.

A New York Times analysis by Congress-watchers finds the filibuster-breaking 60 votes to be within Democrats’ reach. There are 45 “yes” and “likely yes” votes from Majority Leader Reid (D-Nev) and Environment and Public Works Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) to moderates Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). There are 23 more “maybes” from Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who are pro-environment with Big Oil & Gas constituents, and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Carl Levin (D-Mich) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich), who balance agriculture and depressed manufacturing and auto industry constituencies.

32 Republicans are almost sure “no” votes, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), Kit Bond (R-Missouri) and James Inhofe (R-Okla), the most outspoken climate change denier in the Senate.

Will Rogers said it well: People feel the same when Congress is in session and when the baby gets hold of a hammer. (click to enlarge)

The White House is expected to play a bigger role in the Senate fight than it did in the House process. Vice President Joe Biden spent 36 years in the Senate and, it is safe to assume, knows where a lot of bodies are buried. The President’s 4 years as a Senator allow him to understand the Senate’s inner workings.

The President may have some sway with former rival Senator John McCain (R-Ariz) and Biden could influence powerhouse Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), though both are at present vocally unhappy about the state of bipartisanship, or lack thereof. Graham wants nuclear energy and offshore oil drilling on the table. But if the bill includes those Old Energies, it could lose the support of Boxer, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ).

Axelrod, Browner and former Sanders environmental aide Jessica Maher, now a White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) official, have been working the Senate all spring looking for effective compromises.

Some watchers say the key will be about 15 moderate Democrats from the Midwest, Rust Belt and West. One commentator confided that the Senate bill will go the way the Dakotas go.

Conservative Senators Michael Crapo (R-Idaho), Sam Brownback (R-Kan) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio) could play a decisive role on behalf of agricultural interests. Voinovich, who is retiring in 2010, has expressed a particular desire to engage with Democrats and, therefore, could be a swing vote.

An enormous burden now falls on Majority Leader Reid. (click to enlarge)

A number of insiders are urgently calling for Senate leaders to write their own bill rather than cut and paste from Waxman-Markey. They seem to imply the very weak cap&trade allowance auction provisions of Waxman-Markey are still too strong to get approval in the Senate. The final bill may need an “escape clause” allowing Congess to pull back from cap&trade if the weak provisions still seem to threaten to drive utility prices higher and U.S. manufacturing competitiveness lower.

Many see the work to reach compromise too daunting and the other legislation before the Senate, including national health insurance reform, too burdensome for an energy and climate measure to get the attention it needs to win through.

Senator Inhofe says the Democrats have no more than 35 “yes” votes and will not risk a defeat ahead of the Copenhagen summit.

Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) disagrees. Although she is not yet committed on the climate change and cap&trade measures in the legislation, she sees room for compromise in the aspects of the energy legislation that will provide vital economic growth by creating a New Energy economy.

It is entirely possible the crucial vote will be in the hands of Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn), the Democrats’ Vice Presidential candidate in 2000 and a John McCain supporter at the Republican National Convention in 2008. Lieberman once championed cap&trade and is strong on the environment. But will he play ball with the Democrats now? And at what price?

Footnote: At the same time the President hailed the House bill’s passage, he announced new 2012 efficiency standards for residential and business lighting and a $346 million stimulus fund investment in residential and commercial building efficiencies. It is possible the new efficiency standards, combined with existing state and federal New Energy incentives, will have a more positive impact on U.S. GhGs and New Energy capacity than the compromise bill that finally makes its way to the Senate floor.

It is becoming clear why President Truman asked people not to tell his mother he was in politics. He said she believed he was a piano player in a house of prostitution and he didn't want to fall in her estimation. (click to enlarge)

QUOTES
- President Obama: "In the months to come, the Senate will take up its version of the energy bill, and I am confident that they too will choose to move this country forward…"
- Carol Browner, White House advisor on energy and climate policy: "I am confident that ... comprehensive energy legislation will pass the Senate…"
- David Axelrod, White House political adviser: "The House acted; I think the Senate will come to the same conclusion…The [House] bill that was crafted helped ameliorate some of the hard edge that people were worried about. I think that will carry the day in the Senate, as well…The vote is not tomorrow…The vote will come sometime in the fall. I think we will fashion an energy package that will move this country forward and carry the day."
- Senator Bob Bennett (R-Utah): "I don't think the appetite for that kind of thing is nearly as strong on the Senate side as there is in the House…"
- Senator Mark Udall (D-Colo.): "I'm optimistic, if it comes over here, that we'll have a 50-50 or better odds of passing it out of the Senate…There's a lot of momentum over here to work on this. I think we've been tactically smart, letting the House go first. I think if they can find the sweet spot, it's a very similar sweet spot over here. Stay tuned."
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev): "The [House] bill is not perfect, but it is a good product for the Senate and our committees to start considering and begins the nation's inevitable movement to clean and abundant renewable energy and away from harmful and inefficient use of fossil fuels…"
- Senator Ben Nelson (D-Neb): "I think you have to think what the impact is at home…Certainly, I want to support the president when I can. But I can't when I can't.”
- Senator John McCain (D-Ariz), on passing an energy and climate bill: "I don't think it's possible," McCain said. "It's total disarray. There's no bipartisanship, there's no consensus…[To win, the president must sit] down and negotiate seriously. We've had none of that."
- Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC): "The bottom line, if you want to get 60 votes, you're going to have to broaden this beyond cap and trade…"
- James Connaughton, Bush CEQ Chair and vice president, Constellation Energy: "The heart of success resides in industrial state senators who are both Democratic and Republicans…That's not just success in passage, but the lasting success of the program…These guys are responsible for the manufacturing engine of America…They kind of have an accountability that goes beyond their state, to be sure that the policy is done in a way that doesn't disrupt or create incredible disruption in that sector."
- Chelsea Maxwell, former Senate climate adviser and consultant, Clark Group: "The Senate has to go through the process itself…Those members have to be negotiated with. They have to be out there with pens and paper, saying this is the timetable, this is the target, this is what we need for agriculture offset. They really have to go through that... Engagement even from those who are leaning 'no' is important…You can never get them on the fence if they're not paying attention to the details."

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- Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine): "I think it's an enormously complicated issue, and it'd be a mistake to try to rush through it…The House bill has become a monstrosity. It's huge. It has all sorts of accommodations to special interests, and I hope that we in the Senate will start fresh."
- Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): "I keep going to some of the reasons I supported [cap&trade in 2008]…There was a safety valve, an escape hatch, if you will. There was a level of certainty to industry that you knew how bad bad was going to be. I've not seen that in what's coming out of the House."
- Kent Conrad (D-SD), Chair, Senate Budget Committee: "I'm just saying. I don't see, personally -- and again, this is above my pay grade -- I don't see how it all fits together this year…Just go through the list."
- Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla): "I think they are trying to put out as pretty a picture as they can for Copenhagen, but they don't want to go there after it's defeated…"
- Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.): "I think there's more likely to be compromises this year, because everyone understands the economy is in such a fragile condition that you don't want to pass anything that's going to do any kind of have the opposite impact that we're trying to have on the stimulus…We don't want to work against ourselves here in terms of job creation."
- Senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio): "I'm going to continue to try to work to see if we can't come up with something that makes sense…If I can't do that, then the next issue would be to try to get those amendments passed in the committee. And if that doesn't work, then I'll have to do what I did last time, and that's try and stop this bill from getting passed."
- Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn): "Let's put it this way…There are a number of Republicans who are neither a definite 'yes' or a definite 'no.' And that's the group I'm working with."