Kerry

The climate bill being drafted by U.S. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is widely viewed as a compromise between lawmakers bent on reducing fossil fuel emissions and those who fear such reductions will cripple the domestic energy industry.

But their approach of applying different types of carbon limits to different sectors of the industry doesn't just downplay the urgency of reducing emissions. Some economists say the sector-specific approach would be costlier to society and less efficient than an economy-wide approach that would limit emissions “upstream” from where fossil fuels enter the economy, such as at companies that supply raw energy.

President Obama laid out an all-of-the-above energy policy in a speech to national business leaders this afternoon: America need nuclear, solar, energy efficiency, and expanded oil and gas production, he said, and “to truly transition to a clean energy economy, we need to put a price on carbon pollution.”

His words suggest White House support for the framework Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) are using to write a compromise climate and energy bill.

The wildcard, of course, for that bill — which could be introduced as early as next month — and for any Senate action remains the price on carbon.

Today's decisions by oil giants BP and ConocoPhillips to pull out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership along with equipment maker Caterpillar wiped some big names off the roster of the influential industry-environment partnership. But those moves also may give the group more freedom to take stronger positions as it lobbies Congress.

After a year of hope, 2010 is starting out with proponents of action on climate change facing an uphill battle.

In 2009, a new president moved into the White House, Congress inched toward passing a bill to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the Copenhagen climate summit waited as a hopeful coda to a year of climate action. It ended up being a year of mixed results, however, and the prospects for climate action this year appear equally mixed.

Congress gets back into full swing next week, and several senators have made assurances that climate change will be one of the first issues they discuss.

For Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), that means a new attempt to block greenhouse gas regulation by the EPA.

The U.S. got its first glimpse of the future Senate climate bill today as Democrat John Kerry and Republican Lindsey Graham outlined a compromise plan that fully embraces nuclear power, off-shore drilling, "clean coal" and cap-and-trade.

The framework echoes the House's 17 percent mid-term emissions cut, rather than the tougher 20 percent cut approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It also seeks to shield agriculture from the impact of a price on emissions.

Right now, the framework is still just that, a sparse framework. The details will come later as various Senate committees combine their bills with those already passed by the Environment and Public Works and Energy and Natural Resources committees.

What the framework does, Kerry said, is lead the way toward “comprehensive climate change and energy legislation that will pass the Senate early next year.”

Sen. Max Baucus, who has worried fellow Democrats with his concerns about the costs and depth of emissions cuts in the Senate climate bill, said today that he is committed to passing "meaningful, balanced climate change legislation."

Last week, the Montana senator was the only Democrat to vote against the climate bill in the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Today, Baucus opened a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, which he chairs, by saying:

"I want our children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy the outdoors the way that we can today. So I’m going to work to pass climate‐change legislation that is both meaningful and that can muster enough votes to become law.

"Today we’ll hear predictions — some optimistic, some otherwise — about the effects that climate legislation will have on American jobs and the American economy. We need to consider these predictions. But we also need to consider the consequences of failing to act."

What Baucus's comments will mean for the climate bill remains to be seen.

By Matthew Berger

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.

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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.

Here are three suggestions: