Daschle, Reid differ on 60-vote prediction for green-power mandate

Former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle and other advocates of a first-time federal renewable electricity production mandate insist they have enough votes to include it in an upcoming Senate oil spill and energy package, despite Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) prediction to the contrary. 
 
“We are very, very confident that we’ve got the votes,” Daschle said on a conference call Monday.

“We do have 60-plus votes for getting that,” American Wind Energy Association CEO Denise Bode echoed on the call.
 
Advocates are pledging a floor fight if Reid does not include the mandate in a larger oil spill response and energy package he may unveil Monday. “We can virtually guarantee there’ll be an amendment offered,” if it is not initially included in the package, Daschle said. Reid though may only allow a limited number of amendments to get something passed in a short available window on the floor and avoid other contentious provisions that could sink the broader bill.
 
Reid said over the weekend that he is short of the filibuster-proof margin for a renewable electricity standard, or RES, that would boost solar and geothermal businesses important in his state. “I don’t think I have 60 votes to get that done,” Reid said Saturday at the progressive Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas.
 
But Bode said they have done a whip count, which Daschle said was based off support for an RES that was included in a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee bill that passed with bipartisan support last year. That mandate would require electric utilities to produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like wind, solar and geothermal by 2021. A quarter of that mandate could be met through energy efficiency measures.

Republicans have wanted that to include both existing and new nuclear production, while Southeastern lawmakers in both parties have argued their region lacks the resources necessary to meet a national mandate. Green groups, meanwhile, have been calling for a tougher standard than the one in the Senate energy panel’s product. 

Daschle said the one passed in the Senate panel “is a good beginning” and the most politically viable. “In this political climate, we have to do what we have to do,” Bode said.
 
Daschle — who co-wrote a recent op-ed with former Senate Republican leader Bob Dole advocating an RES — said Reid may have confused whether there are 60 votes for a mandate itself and whether there are enough votes overall for the spill and energy package. “We don’t know what’s in the bill yet,” Daschle said. “But we are quite positive that we have the 60 votes just for the straight up RES.”
 
He said the best chance to get the RES through is as part of the larger spill and energy strategy, and acknowledged it is unlikely a stand-alone RES would be moved on the Senate floor after the upcoming August recess.
 
Bode said a renewable production mandate could actually make it easier to pass the larger spill and energy package. “Frankly, I think we also help unify the caucus,” she said. The upcoming spill and energy bill “right now doesn’t provide an overall theme for energy,” and an RES can send a message that the package increases renewable energy jobs, Bode said.
 
Daschle, Bode and others — including Iowa Gov. Chet Culver (D) — stressed that the Senate has to act on the mandate to save jobs and the future of the wind and other industries in the United States. “This is as urgent as it can be,” Daschle said. “Our energy future in this country depends on it and tens of thousands of jobs are at stake,” Culver said.
 
Bode said investment in wind energy in the U.S. has taken a sharp decline this year and that the country has fallen behind both China and the European Union. “We’re going backwards, we’re not going forwards,” she said.