John Broder reports in the New York Times:
Images of gushing oil and dying pelicans in the Gulf of Mexico have stirred anger and agony in Washington. But are they enough to prod the Senate to act on long-delayed clean energy and climate change legislation?
Energy, maybe. Climate, probably not. There is growing sentiment for a measure that penalizes BP, imposes higher costs and tougher regulations on offshore drillers and takes some steps toward reducing overall energy and petroleum consumption.
But despite the outrage over the spill, there appears to be limited appetite in the Senate for a broad-based effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions across the board.
Enacting that kind of legislation will require a grand bargain involving greater nuclear plant construction, concessions to the coal and utility industries, exemptions for major manufacturers and more, not less, domestic oil and gas drilling to attract Republican and moderate Democratic support.
A coalition of 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster is not yet in sight. In the words of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican who worked on a climate change bill for months before pronouncing it hopeless, “There’s nowhere near 60 votes to save the polar bear.”
As Ezra Klein asks, can the president change that?
In his first Oval Office speech Tuesday night, President Obama will demand that BP fund an independently-run fund to pay for the Gulf cleanup. That’s the deliverable, at least. The bigger question is whether he uses the speech to make the case for a climate bill? Right now, the Senate is trending towards doing an energy only bill instead. Tuesday’s speech could be the last chance for climate legislation to get a hearing.
I think he has to go for it. Rather than have the Kerry-Lieberman part of the bill introduced as an amendment, it should be in the base bill. If they can’t get cloture, then introduce a manager’s bill to strip the climate parts out of it. But, first, make this an issue and highlight Republican obstruction. Don’t let climate change legislation go down without a fight.
Graham’s spin is telling. When climate change is reduced to some sentimental whine about saving the polar bears, of course all the Real American Men are going to despise it. I think setting up climate change legislation as something separate from energy was unfortunate. It weakened the arguments for both. By any reasonable measure, climate change policy IS energy policy. Keeping the issues separate strengthens those who want energy to be about gas prices and climate change to be about walruses and rain forests.
In any case, there’s no reason to expect the kind of radical policy changes that would be required if we were to create some probability of saving ourselves. Politically I agree that the climate part should be incorporated into the base bill and be the cause of an all-out fight. Unlike with healthcare, it’s hard to see any compromise reaching the level where it does any good at all, and compromise is what we’ll get as long as the country runs on oil and bribes.
They will let it go down without a fight. Bet on it.
Don’t open your box of despair just yet:
If Bingaman’s bill is the base bill, I won’t fight for it, and I’d advise everyone else to drop it altogether. It’s better we do nothing that waste time and effort to pass that crap.
Hopefully Reid is feeling more bold.
Great analysis that I read today about this
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-14-energy-politics-in-the-senate-why-merkleys-oil-plan-matters/
The planet will burn as our ahole Senators punt on carbon because 60 votes are just too hard. I would rather hang this issues around GOP’s neck for the November election as they will likely block it and pass real climate legislation by changing the filibuster rules in the next Congress. Of course, the Blue Dog democrats will likely screw it up by bitching about passing the bill again, unless they get wiped out in November.