With the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee approving its component of the climate bill Thursday, attention can now turn to the five other parallel projects that will eventually come together as one comprehensive Senate bill.
When that will occur and what exactly might come of it are matters still largely left to speculation, but, with the Copenhagen climate talks now impending, details are increasingly beginning to emerge about the future of U.S. domestic climate legislation.
By sending their portion of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act out of committee today, EPW joins the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee as the only two of the six Senate committees involved in the bill to finish their work.
The Senate launched a marathon week of climate bill hearings this morning with strong indications from a key Democrat that the legislation will have to be watered down to gain enough votes to pass.
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the influential Finance Committee, said he was concerned about the costs involved, the lack of preemption of the Clean Air Act, and the depth of the bill’s mid-term greenhouse gas reduction target — 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, compared to 17% in the House-passed version.
“Montana, with our resource-based agriculture and tourism economies, cannot afford the unmitigated effects of climate change, but we also cannot afford the unmitigated effects of climate change legislation,” Baucus told his colleagues during the Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.
Now that Sens. John Kerry and Barbara Boxer have introduced their climate bill in the United States Senate, this fall will be all about the dogs. To get the 60 votes they need to pass a bill, progressive Democrats will be trying to turn Blue Dog Democrats into Green Dog Democrats.
Welcome to the dog days of autumn. Watch for progressives to offer milk bones, kibbles and bits to coax their more conservative colleagues into commitments that conscience alone should be sufficient to dictate.
The challenge for leaders in the Senate, as it was in the House, will be to prevent the climate bill from being negotiated into something far less than required to reinvent the American economy and reverse our greenhouse gas emissions, and to do both quickly.
Whether Senate leaders succeed in producing public policy that averts climate disaster will depend in large part on how they frame the debate.
If Mother Nature were handing out grades, she’d have a difficult time assigning one to the climate dissertation known as Waxman-Markey, approved by the House and now being considered by the Senate.
For one thing, she’d have to grade on a curve. What looks like an “A” in Washington may qualify for no more than a “C” or “D” outside the beltway – and may be no better than “F” in the rest of the world.
Now that the Senate leadership has postponed markup of a climate bill until September, it should take time to carefully consider how it defines “success”.
With the future of the planet hanging in the balance, with the world watching for what the United States will do, and with Congressional action likely to have a major influence on whether we’ll see a global climate agreement at Copenhagen, this is probably the most important exam the current members of Congress will ever take.
President Obama changed the tune in Washington when he ordered that all policymaking be based on sound science. But the shift from opinion- to fact-based decisionmaking still hasn’t transferred to Congress.
The problem is evident each time the House and Senate environment committees hold hearings on climate change.
In the interest of balance, the minority-party committee members have the power to invite witnesses to testify. And Republicans such as Sen. James Inhofe and Reps. Joe Barton and John Shimkus (see video) have ensured that climate change deniers without credentials in climate science testify alongside respected scientists.
The result is conflicting testimony that keeps the committee chairmen running interference as they try to clarify fact from fiction and leaves less-informed members of Congress bluntly asking: Who's lying?
Perhaps they should ask John Holdren, who was confirmed last week as director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He's the president's chief science advisor, America's "scientist laureate." At a conference a few months ago, he spelled out how preposterous the views of climate change deniers are:
“Members of the public who are tempted to be swayed by this vocal fringe should ask themselves how it could be, if human-caused climate change is just a hoax, that the leaderships of the national academies of sciences of every country in the world that has one are repeatedly on record saying that global climate change is real, dangerous, caused mainly by humans, and reason for early and concerted action to reduce those causes; that this is also the overwhelming consensus view among the faculty members of the earth sciences departments at every major university in the world.”
“The fact is that anybody who could believe that the cream of the part of the world scientific community that has actually studied this phenomenon could be co-opted by hoaxers or suffering from mass hysteria is just not thinking clearly."
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer gave opponents of climate change legislation, including some in her own party, a “reality check on global warming” this morning.
Look at the Federal Register – the EPA and other federal agencies are already moving to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Boxer told a news conference. California will soon have a waiver so it and 17 other states can increase their auto emissions standards. A declaration that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare is coming.
“The days of inaction on climate change have ended,” Boxer said. “Action has begun.”
“My message to my colleagues is, we could sit here and let EPA do it, with the president’s support, we could allow the states and cities and the world to do it, or we can move forward. I believe the thing to do is to move forward.”
The target of her message was clear, and it wasn’t the press.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) took the first steps toward Senate action on climate legislation today by announcing a list of principles and vowing to get a cap-and-trade bill through her Environment and Public Works Committee by the end of the year.
It could be weeks, not months. ... We know that we have to act, and we intend to act.
That prompted Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the Senate's climate skeptic-in-chief, to issue this statement that read like an invitation to a fight:
Congressional cap-and-trade bills, often touted as an ‘insurance policy’ against global warming, would instead be nothing more than all economic pain for no climate gain. We look forward to debating these tough issues in the Committee this year.
Boxer's news conference was short on details about the future climate legislation. She promised that “Science will guide us. Period.” A carbon tax is out. Cap-and-trade is in. Asked which low-emissions energy sources would benefit from the legislation, Boxer gave a clear nod to nuclear as one, noting that some of the environment committee’s members “are extremely pro-nuclear.”
Instead, Boxer outlined the basic principles that will guide the development of a climate bill:
Reduce emissions to levels guided by science
Set short and long-term emissions targets that are certain and enforceable, with periodic reviews
Ensure state and local entities continue their efforts to address climate change
Establish a transparent market-based system to reduce carbon emissions
Use revenue from the carbon market to: keep consumers whole as the nation transitions to clean energy; invest in clean energy technology and energy efficiency; help states and localities address climate change impacts; help workers and businesses transition to a clean energy economy; support wildlife and ecosystem conservation; work with the international community to help developing nations respond and adapt to climate change
Ensure a level global playing field by providing incentives for emissions reductions and effective deterrents so all countries contribute their fair share to combat global warming
Some of Boxer's comments after she read the principles sent mixed messages, though.
