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Reid throws climate lifeline to greens
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has pledged to bring to the Senate floor an energy and climate package that includes controversial greenhouse gas curbs, throwing a lifeline to liberals who say the legislation falls short without them.
Reid indicated the bill would include provisions to limit greenhouse gases from electric power plants, which account for roughly a third of the country’s emissions.
Reid’s pledge, however, left major questions about the scope of the utility plan and steered clear of any details. He declined even to use the words “carbon” or “greenhouse gases,” vowing instead to target “pollution.”
“At this stage, we haven’t completed it, but we’re looking at a way of making sure that when we talk about pollution, that we’re focused just on the utility section,” he said.
Asked about Reid's language, Senate aides indicated the bill would address greenhouse gases.
Reid said he hopes to have a draft of the legislation next week; it will come to the floor as soon as the week of July 26.
Any plan to impose a cost on industrial greenhouse gas emissions faces major hurdles. But Reid’s remarks came as good news for liberal activists, who have seen their hopes of action on a more sweeping climate change bill fall apart given resistance from most Republicans and some centrist Democrats.
A “utility-only” approach has emerged as a fallback as more sweeping plans covering more emissions sources — like factories, motor fuels, refineries and other sectors — ran into political headwinds.
Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) have been negotiating with Reid’s office about the power plant-focused approach. The pair has crafted a more aggressive bill covering an array of industries, but did not make enough headway to keep it in the mix. The House narrowly passed a broad “economywide” cap-and-trade bill last year.
Lieberman told reporters that even a scaled-back approach is worth pursuing.
“It is a significant step forward, but it probably doesn’t achieve the same cut in dependence on foreign oil or the same reduction in carbon pollution, and it doesn’t create the same number of jobs, but it would be a significant start,” he told reporters Tuesday, several hours before Reid’s comments.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a strong ally of his home-state coal industry, said he was doubtful that any carbon-pricing plan can win 60 Senate votes.
“If you have 60 votes, then go ahead and do it. But don’t do it just for the sake of doing it,” he said Tuesday after the Democratic caucus met to discuss its agenda.
While some Senate Republicans — including Olympia Snowe (Maine) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) — have signaled interest in a utility-focused plan, GOP leaders and many rank-and-file members have long attacked carbon limits, calling them “cap-and-tax” schemes.
But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a liberal who backs aggressive climate legislation, nonetheless said a debate on a wide energy bill that includes emissions curbs is a political winner for Democrats.
“If we are persistent on this, it puts us in a very, very good position; it puts the Republicans in a very challenging position to keep having to say, ‘No, no, no’ to something that not only has the support of Democrats but has the support of independents,” he said.
“It puts us in a great position,” he added.
A broad energy-and-climate package was not discussed with Democratic senators on Tuesday at a White House meeting designed in part to set an agenda for the month.
Snowe’s office has worked with Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) on a utility-focused climate plan. But Snowe said she was uncertain if such a plan could win the political traction needed, citing the “skepticism that has been expressed by so many.”
Bingaman crafted a draft utility-focused bill in April, since modified, that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the utility and potentially other industrial sectors 17 percent by 2020 and 42 percent by 2030.
It would mandate that electric utilities participate in a cap-and-trade program by 2012 but allow manufacturers and other industrial sources to elect to “opt in” to the program. It contains provisions to shield manufacturers and consumers from increased electricity costs.
Kerry and Lieberman are circulating a 667-page discussion draft that also focuses on levying a carbon-pricing plan on utilities.
They had initially pushed a nearly 1,000-page three-sector carbon-pricing plan but scaled it back under political and time pressure.
Like Bingaman’s, it would reduce emissions from the utility sector 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 42 percent by 2030. It also has the goal of reducing emissions 83 percent by 2050.
With any carbon plan facing attacks, it remains unclear whether such provisions can remain in a final energy package.
The last time the Senate passed a massive energy bill, in 2007, the measure originally included two provisions favored by many liberals but attacked by many Republicans: A mandate that utilities supply escalating amounts of power from renewable sources, and provisions that repealed oil industry tax breaks.
Reid reluctantly stripped both after the bill stalled, clearing the way for final passage.
