Graham: Colleagues will be ‘risk averse’ following health care debate

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday that he remains committed to working on climate and energy legislation in the wake of the contentious health care debate, but warned that the effort now faces a tougher road.

“It is going to make it difficult to do anything complicated and controversial,” he told reporters in the Capitol.

Graham has been highly critical of Democrats’ tactics on health care, claiming that plans to use reconciliation to complete the bill will “poison the well” for subsequent initiatives – including the energy bill he’s crafting with Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

“I am still committed to try and roll out a vision of how you can price carbon and make it business friendly,” he said. “We’re still going to do that.”

“But the truth of the matter is, I think you are going to find most of our colleagues around here more risk averse,” he added.