Reid faces pressure on climate change

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is facing new pressure to include limits on greenhouse gases in an energy bill.

Climate change advocates worried the Senate will move an energy bill this year without the limits want Reid to reject an energy-only approach.

“Passing an energy bill alone is just more-of-the-same at a time when our economy and our environment require a new direction,” the groups told Reid in a letter issued Tuesday.

“Failing to act now will cost us much more in the future, as other nations continue to surpass the U.S. in transitioning to the clean-energy economy we know awaits us,” it sated.

More than 30 groups signed the letter, including the Sierra Club, National Wildlife  Federation, United Steelworkers, Oxfam, Interfaith Power and Light and others.

The missive to Reid shows concerns among the groups are growing that an energy only approach is gaining traction with lawmakers worried that climate change measures could hurt their reelection chances.

Cap-and-trade and other proposals to require the reduction of heat-trapping gases face major Senate hurdles amid allegations by many GOP members, several Democrats and some business groups that they would harm the economy.

Centrist Democrats such as Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) say the Senate should vote on energy legislation approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in June.

That broad bill includes new renewable energy requirements, expanded federal financing for low-carbon energy technologies, new Gulf of Mexico oil-and-gas drilling and energy efficiency programs, but no limits on carbon emissions.

The letter argues that limits on heat-trapping gases should not be cast aside:

“Investments in clean energy solutions such as efficiency programs, grid enhancements, and a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) are important components in enhancing energy security and promoting growth of  low-carbon energy sources, but they alone cannot reduce our fossil fuel dependency, provide the long-term investment in job creation, or reduce carbon emissions at the necessary scale. Only by combining such measures with an enforceable, economy-wide limit on carbon pollution will America unleash her entrepreneurial power and fully transition us to reliable, low-polluting energy sources, generated and installed by workers right here in the United States,” states the letter, which was also delivered to the Senate’s other members.