CLIMATE: On road to 60, Senate swells with fence sitters

NOTE: Both U.S. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) and U.S. Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) are listed as "fence sitters" on the proposed comprehensive climate and energy legislation. See paragraphs below in red.

E&E Daily - 10/20/09

by Darren Samuelsohn, E&E senior reporter

The fence is getting a bit more crowded.

Despite two significant moves over the last month -- a bill introduction and the emergence of a possible bipartisan partnership -- the number of senators unwilling to commit to voting for comprehensive climate and energy legislation continues to grow.

According to E&E's latest analysis, 24 senators now belong in the "fence sitter" category that leaves them up for grabs headed into the winter push for 60 votes that sponsors will need to overcome an expected Republican filibuster.

Here's the good news for climate advocates: E&E now finds that at least 67 senators are in play on the issue, enough not only to pass the climate bill but also to ratify an international treaty should sponsors actually run the boards and not lose a single member.

For starters, the bill's lead sponsors, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), can safely rely on 31 "yes" votes as they work on building their coalition. That list includes Ben Cardin of Maryland, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Tom Udall of New Mexico. All appeared at a Capitol Hill campaign-style rally last month during the public unveiling of the legislation, S. 1733.

Another 12 senators fall into the "probably yes" camp, from Michael Bennet of Colorado to Al Franken of Minnesota and Mark Warner of Virginia. Bennet and Warner are not slam dunks given the fossil fuel interests in their home states, while Franken dropped off the "yes" list when he signed a letter with nine other Democrats in August that raised concerns about President Obama's stance against trade sanctions on carbon-intensive goods from developing countries that do not have strong enough climate policies (E&ENews PM, Aug. 6).

As for the fence sitters, the list continues to swell from both directions as key senators hedge their bets.

For example, Sens. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) no longer reside in the "probably yes" camp given their recent statements on allocations and oversight of the carbon markets, respectively. Baucus may drive the hardest bargain as chairman of the Finance Committee, where he is sure to negotiate on behalf of coal-state Democrats who think the House-passed bill unfairly favors electric utilities that service the East and West coasts.

Two senators have recently been upgraded to the fence from the "probably no" camp are Sens. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) and George Voinovich (R-Ohio). Byrd has long questioned action to curb emissions but has taken a lead role on carbon sequestration language that Kerry and Boxer are trying to wrap into their proposal. Voinovich has a reputation for bipartisan consensus building, and recent signals supporting the nuclear power industry are raising hopes in some sectors that the retiring senator should still be considered in play.

"If you engage in a very proactive way to get a bill done, he will negotiate and compromise," said a former Senate Republican aide.

E&E's analysis is based on interviews with senators, plus dozens of Democratic and Republican sources, industry and environmental groups.

Counting Republicans

GOP interest is significant for the climate bill's overall prospects given that Democrats are unlikely to carry all 60 of their own votes on the floor.

In all, E&E now lists eight Republicans as "fence sitters" on the climate bill, with the two from Maine -- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe -- holding firm as "probably yes" votes given their past efforts on the issue. Collins and Snowe are likely to compensate for the loss of Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the only Democrats listed among 11 "probably no" votes given their many comments questioning the environmental agenda of the Obama administration and Senate leaders.

Elsewhere, sponsors got their biggest boost when Kerry went public with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on a partnership that they had been quietly working on since the summer. The senators pledged in an Oct. 11 New York Times op-ed that they would try to find compromise on several key areas, including nuclear power, offshore drilling and a border tax on items produced in countries that avoid high environmental standards.

"I can see a way to get to 60 votes, and so can he, if we pull the right folks to the table and do this in the right way," Kerry said last week. "And that's what we're going to do."

Climate advocates are urging Kerry and Graham to turn their broad principles into legislation.

"It's still right now just a possibility," said Manik Roy of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "We need to operationalize that."

Graham's support also may be key for other Republicans.

Jason Grumet, a former Obama presidential campaign adviser and the president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, counts as many as 10 Republicans who have been engaged in past climate debates "who are certainly poised to come back if the Graham beachhead becomes more secured."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) stands out as one leading GOP candidate to get behind a climate bill. The two-term senator co-sponsored climate legislation last year with Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) in part because of provisions designed to protect against high energy prices, as well as financial aid to Alaska for adaptation to rising seas and melting permafrost.

So far this year, Murkowski has questioned Democrats' desires to push for a vote on the climate bill before a major U.N. climate conference this December in Copenhagen. At the same time, she said Sunday on C-SPAN that Graham's emergence opens the door further to a number of supply-side provisions she supports, including efforts to expand nuclear power, natural gas and oil production.

"Count me as one of those who will keep my mind open as we move forward in looking at all aspects of this," Murkowski said.

Other fence-sitting Republicans include Sen. Richard Lugar, the six-term senator who has tamped down his optimism this year in part because of unemployment in Indiana that continues to hover near double digits. Lugar said last month in an interview he remains engaged but does not like the approach taken earlier this year with H.R. 2454, the House-passed climate bill.

"I don't know that we've pulled back," Lugar said. "It's just the formulation from the House I find objectionable on many grounds. Without jumping up and down any further, I think more constructive ways of fighting climate change can be found and I'll be working to find it."

Senate Budget Committee ranking member Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) also remains in play, with nuclear power and fiscal issues atop his list of demands. Asked last week about how the Kerry-Graham partnership could influence his vote, Gregg replied, "If nuclear comes under that and has proper incentives, that could be a major step forward."

The party's 2008 presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), poses a big challenge for climate bill advocates (E&E Daily, July 16). While McCain appears to be making headway in his demand for greater incentives for nuclear power, he is in direct conflict with manufacturing state Democrats and Graham, one of his close allies in last year's White House campaign, over the border tax issue.

"I know that I'd never agree to tariffs on the borders for countries that don't comply with our requirements," McCain said last week.

Other big questions revolve around Florida's new GOP senator, George LeMieux. Gov. Charlie Crist (R) appointed LeMieux, his former chief of staff, to be a caretaker to the Senate seat he hopes to win in the 2010 elections.

But Crist must succeed in a Republican primary slated for next August that so far has forced him to distance himself from past progressive views on the climate issue. Already, Crist's opponent, Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, has garnered the endorsement of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), an outspoken opponent of global warming legislation. LeMieux's vote will be seen as a critical test for Crist among the state's Republican base (Greenwire, Aug. 17).

Fence-sitting Democrats

The fence also includes moderate Democrats from all corners of the country, some more actively engaged in the climate debate than others.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, for example, is crafting language to help manufacturers (E&E Daily, Oct. 14). Michigan's Debbie Stabenow hopes to release long-awaited agriculture ideas. And Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania will be forced to take a stand as early as next month when Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee holds a markup on its bill.

Other influential Democratic fence sitters include Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, who said last week that he expects to push at least four issues once the bill nears the floor.

Levin said he will be seeking a national greenhouse gas emission standard and repeal of state-specific standards. Like Franken, he said a border tax adjustment needs to be part of the bill. And Levin said he wants a "fail-safe provision in case the technologies don't advance as quickly as some people think they will."

"And you've got to fairly proportion the burden," Levin added.

Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) also remains on the fence. The two-term senator said last week that she wants to get a better grip on the effect that a climate bill would have on farmers and in the cost of food to consumers.

"I don't disagree with the objective, and I hope we'll stay focused on the objective, which is to lower our greenhouse gases and emissions and our carbon output," Lincoln said.

Lincoln in past years has cosponsored efforts to address the cost fluctuations in climate legislation. Environmental groups are banking on her and Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) as key votes that get them to across the 60-vote threshold.

But an industry source tracking the climate debate doubts that Lincoln can sign off on climate legislation as she heads into a heated re-election battle next November. "No amount of National Wildlife Federation polling is going to help her in the delta," the source said. "She has an issue."

Election-year politics also may influence several other Democrats. Specter faces a primary challenge from his left in Rep. Joe Sestak, a campaign that has put an even larger spotlight on his vote (E&E Daily, Oct. 6).

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) faces the same unemployment concerns as Lugar but with the added pressure of a 2010 re-election campaign. So far, Bayh has not drawn a significant challenger and political analyst Charlie Cook ranked the race earlier this month as "solid D" for the incumbent. But political observers still see Bayh as vulnerable to home-state concerns.

Other Democrats on the fence include a number of senators representing either coal-consuming or coal-producing states, including Claire McCaskill of Missouri, North Dakota Sens. Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana and Jim Webb of Virginia. Conrad and Dorgan may be among the most difficult fence sitters to win over. Both have insisted for months that Senate leaders should start with energy-only legislation and save the big climate change measure for later.

Debating floor strategy

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has so far left open the door on a possible floor debate before the end of the year on the climate bill, but time is running short for the five committees still charged with filling in key details (E&E Daily, Oct. 16).

Committee leaders do not have any deadlines, leaving many to speculate the bill will most likely wait until early 2010 to see any floor action despite Boxer's plans for markup in November. Boxer has said she is waiting for U.S. EPA analysis of her legislation, something agency spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara said should be finished by Friday.

Environmentalists have not stopped pushing for action. While several green groups have warned of the international consequences if the Senate rejected climate legislation before the Copenhagen negotiations, advocates still want to see a floor vote that forces senators to take a stand one way or another.

"People have to understand this vote is going to happen sooner rather than later," said David Goldston, director of government operations at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Inhofe, the ranking member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, predicts that Democrats will max out around 35 "yes" votes.

"They're going to try to fence off people," said Inhofe, one of 22 Republican senators E&E lists as a sure "no" on the climate bill. "We understand that. And they'll be counting votes as they do it. But I think it's a moving target."

For any group that signs up for the bill, Inhofe said he thinks they are just as likely to back out. "For example," Inhofe said, "when they tried to fence off the wheat growers, they bought into it for a short period of time, and then they said, 'Wait a minute, this is going to be just as hard on us and somebody else.'"

Dan Weiss, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, has a much bigger target in mind as Democratic leaders gear up for the floor. He said Reid and company should try to have a big enough cushion that they do not need to give in to every demand of every fence-sitting senator.

"Senate leaders obviously want to have more than 60 votes in play," Weiss said.

Bit by bit, advocates for the climate bill expect a winning combination to come together. Asked for the recipe, Goldston said he does not think one compromise will do it. Instead, he said he is watching for coalitions to form on individual issues, with several degrees of overlap.

"There's not one simple way where you get person X and you automatically get everyone else," Goldston said. "The work still has to be done member by member."

Climate bill supporters also say that the senators just need to be reminded that they've been debating many of these unresolved issues -- on everything from cost containment to emission allocations, greenhouse gas targets, offsets, technological availability and international competition -- dating back to the George W. Bush administration.

"The good news is the path to 60 is not particularly mysterious," Grumet said. "The issues have been quite well defined for the last year or so."

And that means that some of the key compromises already reached in the House may just need to be renegotiated, with some state-specific tweaks here and there.

"Everything's been said," Weiss added. "But not everybody's said it."

http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2009/10/20/1/

Sen. Bayh Signs Letter to President Obama Opposing Climate Change Bill Without Protection for Manufacturing

The following article was published on August 7, 2009, in the New York Times. According to the Indianapolis Star Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) has said he opposes the climate change bill the House passed in June. Both Sen. Bayh and Sen. Lugar are expected to be in Indiana during the August recess. The Senate is expected to resume work on the Senate version of an energy bill following the August recess.


Climate Bill Is Threatened by Senators

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/us/politics/07climate.html

By JOHN M. BRODER


WASHINGTON — Ten moderate Senate Democrats from states dependent on coal and manufacturing sent a letter to President Obama on Thursday saying they would not support any climate change bill that did not protect American industries from competition from countries that did not impose similar restraints on climate-altering gases.

The letter warned that strong actions to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases would add to the cost of goods like steel, cement, paper and aluminum. Unless other countries adopt similar emission limits, the senators warned, jobs will migrate overseas and foreign manufacturers will have a decided cost advantage.

“As Congress considers energy and climate legislation,” the senators wrote, “it is important that such a bill include provisions to maintain a level playing field for American manufacturing.”

“It is essential that any clean energy legislation not only address the crisis of climate change, but include strong provisions to ensure the strength and viability of domestic manufacturing,” the letter said.

The 10 senators are seen as crucial undecided votes in the Senate debate on climate legislation. The House narrowly passed a climate bill in late June, but the Senate is moving slowly, in part because it is preoccupied with health care legislation.

The senators represent Midwestern and coal-producing states from which many of the 44 Democrats who voted against the measure in the House come from. Without their support, it is unlikely that the Senate can pass a major climate change bill.

The 10 senators were Evan Bayh of Indiana; Sherrod Brown of Ohio; Robert C. Byrd and John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia; Bob Casey and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania; Russ Feingold of Wisconsin; Al Franken of Minnesota; and Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
They called for transition aid for energy-intensive manufacturers in the form of rebates on their energy costs; negotiation of a strong international agreement on emissions; programs to monitor emissions in other countries; and significant financing for clean energy technology.

The authors also proposed “border adjustments,” tariffs, on goods from countries that do not agree to an international program for carbon dioxide reductions. The House bill gives the president the power to impose such penalties on goods from countries that do not adhere to an international climate change regime.

“Climate change is a reality and the world cannot afford inaction,” the senators wrote. “However, we must not engage in a self-defeating effort that displaces greenhouse gas emissions rather than reducing them and displaces U.S. jobs rather than bolstering them.”

In an interview shortly after the House vote, President Obama said he was concerned about the tariff provision of the House bill, calling it potentially protectionist.

Green Business Owner Responds to Congressman Mike Pence

This guest editorial was submitted by Terrence Black with Green Way Supply who is a founding member of the Indiana Renewable Energy Association in response to comments made by Congressman Mike Pence in the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address. The original story follows.

Black: Pence Sounds Like "Henny Penny" on Cap and Trade

First, I would like to remind the “Henny Penny” chorus that we very effectively reduced Acid Rain in the 1970’s when we instituted and a cap and trade system on Sulfur Dioxide. The benefits far outweighed the actual very small increase in utility costs. We have a president that worked. Second, we will never persuade other countries to cut their emissions unless we do it ourselves. That’s called leadership. And finally with a sagging national economy hitting us hard here in Indiana, every elected official should be looking for ways to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

The climate bill before congress will essentially limit or cap dirty technology, which will create incentives to reduce our energy use and help develop and install more clean renewable sources of energy. I can tell you first hand that when it comes to creating jobs for Hoosiers, supporting local businesses, and helping residents save money, the smart money is on clean energy. In this economy, my business is growing. This year we have doubled our revenue and the number of employees here in Indianapolis. I believe energy management and renewable energy will be our biggest growth area in the coming years. We recently installed several small-scale commercial and residential wind turbines and photovoltaic systems that are true CLEAN ENERGY generators and more systems are scheduled to be installed this year.

My business also supports more than a dozen local Indiana companies that are the leading edge of the new GREEN ECONCOMY – one that has the potential to power us into a new era of prosperity and energy independence. Study after study has shown what I know from on-the-ground experience: investing in new, clean energy creates jobs at a much faster rate than investments in old, dirty energy sources like oil and gas. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts found that investments in clean energy produce two to three times as many jobs as investments in dirty, low-tech energy. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Department of Energy have issued similar findings. Why settle for half as many jobs when we could have double, or even triple? I think Congressman Pence, Governor Daniels and others are actually wrongheaded.

Terrence Black
Green Way Supply
tblack@greenwaysupply.net
(317) 822-8505


Pence: Climate bill is wrongheaded
Hoosier says GOP's drilling/nuclear plan would have an alternative-energy payoff

By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Republicans on Saturday slammed a Democratic bill before the House that seeks to address climate change, arguing that it amounts to an energy tax on consumers.
In the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence said Congress should instead open the way for more domestic oil and natural gas production and ease regulatory barriers to building new nuclear power plants.

"During these difficult times, the American people don't want a national energy tax out of Washington, D.C.," said Pence, the third-ranking House Republican.
Pence reiterated what GOP lawmakers have been saying for weeks: that the climate bill being considered in the House, which caps releases of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, would lead to much higher energy costs and accomplish little to counter global warming if other nations do not act as well. The bill's supporters counter that the increased costs can be minimized.

Pence outlined the alternative proposal that he and several other House Republicans unveiled last week. The GOP plan included no mandatory limits on greenhouse gases -- something that supporters of the Democratic bill argue is essential to reduce the risks of global warming.
Still, Pence maintains the GOP plan will promote nonfossil-fuel energy use.

"The Republican energy plan calls for more domestic exploration for oil and natural gas, renewed commitment to clean, emission-free nuclear energy, investments in renewable and alternative energy technologies and incentives to spur greater conservation among individuals and businesses," he said.

The GOP plan calls for using revenue from more oil and gas drilling to promote renewable energy such as wind and solar; it also makes it easier to get approval to build more nuclear power plants. The proposal also sets a goal of doubling the number of nuclear reactors over the next 20 years.

When Pence introduced the GOP measure, the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called it "the same tired policies embraced" for years by then-President George W. Bush "at a time when Americans are seeking new solutions to rebuild our economy and break our dependence on foreign energy sources."

published in Indianapolis Star on June 14, 2009
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009906140373

To watch the GOP Weekly Address http://www.gop.gov/media/weekly-republican-address/09/06/13/weekly-republican-address

Please share your thoughts with Congressman Mike Pence.

Washington, D.C. Website:
http://mikepence.house.gov/

Washington, D.C. Webmail:
https://forms.house.gov/pence/IMA/contact_form.htm

Washington, D.C. Address:
1431 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202-225-3021
Fax: 202-225-3382