Inside the Senate Environment & Public Works hearing room on Day 1, deny & delay senators were trying to reopen scientific debates and keep America addicted to foreign oil. Outside the hearing room, Americans were calling on Congress to get on with it already -- a new poll showed 60% demanding strong climate action to get us on a new energy path.
So what contradictions & surprises await on Day 2? What climate scientists will Sen. Jim Inhofe accuse of taking bribes? When angrily asking why the heck we haven't acted already, Sen. Bernie Sanders' head finally explode? Updates after the jump, and please add your own analysis in comments.
UPDATE 4:56pm - Why is there a coal lobbyist on this panel? Oh, right. Inhofe. More on polluter front group spinmaster Jim Sims at SourceWatch.
5:32pm - Hearing adjourned!
5:31pm - Sen. Boxer points out that for some strange reason the Western Business Roundtable doesn't list its members on its website.
5:12pm - Via Twitter's @EricPooley: NWF's Schweiger- We need to help flora & fauna migrate. Old maple outside my window says she ain't going nowhere.
5:02pm - Ah, here's the report Inhofe keeps referring to. It doesn't say we're not going after things like oil shale because of regulation, as Inhofe is claiming. The report couldn't be more explicit in saying we're not going after it because it's phenomenally expensive -- even without pricing in its global warming pollution.
4:56pm - Why is there a coal lobbyist on this panel? Oh, right. Inhofe. More on polluter front group spinmaster Jim Sims at SourceWatch.
4:52pm - This explains Sen. Alexander's bizarre overuse of his nuclear/sailboat analogy.
4:40pm - NWF's Larry Schweiger asks senators if they want their grandchildren to grow up in a world without some of our most iconic species.
4:35pm - Over at Grist, check out The Hidden Cost of Coal
4:22pm - Via Twitter's LCVoters: Ronald Young, Pres. CA Sanitation Agencies says global warming will cause less safe water supplies. Supports #CEJAPA
4:05pm - Panel #3 is winding down, so here's a preview of the fourth & final panel, written testimony here:
* Shari T. Wilson, Secretary, Maryland Department of the Environment
* Ronald E. Young, President, California Association of Sanitation Agencies
* Dr. Peter C. Frumhoff, Chief Scientist, Climate Campaign, Union of Concerned Scientists
* Larry J. Schweiger, President & CEO, National Wildlife Federation
* Fawn Sharp, President, Quinault Indian Nation
* Jim Sims, President & CEO, Western Business Roundtable
* Dr. Kenneth P. Green, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
3:43pm - Via Twitter's @EnvDefenseFund -- Sen. Lautenberg: We have a sick patient. This patient is weak. This patient needs medicine.
3:38pm - Once again, the committee is without a Republican in the hearing room long before the panel ends.
3:31pm - Sen. Kit "We Can't Pick Winners & Losers" Bond trashes wind. If Bond was really looking out for Missouri's economy, wouldn't he be fighting to put a revenue-generating windmill on every farm?
3:22pm - Inhofe again falsely claims US is #1 in world in oil reserves. We're 11th, with just 3% of world's reserves. Hope reporters call him out on it.
3:07pm - OK, so after having listened to the deny & delay crowd for five hours now, I think I have this down.
If you're raising people's energy prices as much as 45% in three years due to the skyrocketing cost of oil, coal, uranium, or natural gas, or if you're just looking to make record profit, that's fine.
If you're supporting legislation that might raise rates slightly over the course of a decade while helping consumers slash their overall bills in the name of avoiding billions in costs of global warming impacts, that will destroy our economy.
2:57pm - Johnson: "I'm no Neanderthal." Jeez, dude, stop digging it deeper.
2:56pm - Wow, the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission's Dustin Johnson blatantly plays the Inhofe "heartland versus coastal elites" card. Again, not a great idea to align yourself with the deniers in your opening statement.
2:33pm - Long Island Power Authority's Kevin Law: "The old ways of doing things -- making electricity and distributing electricity -- are no longer working."
2:30pm - Witness list for the third panel:
* David Crane, President and Chief Executive Officer, NRG Energy, Inc.
* Ralph Izzo, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (PSEG)
* Kevin Law, President & Chief Executive Officer, Long Island Power Authority
* Nathaniel Keohane, Director of Economic Policy and Analysis, Environmental Defense Fund
* Joel Bluestein, Senior Vice President, ICF International
* Barry Hart, Chief Executive Officer, Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives
* Dustin Johnson, Commissioner, South Dakota Public Utilities Commission
2:25pm - National Wildlife Federation President & CEO Larry Schweiger will be testifying later this afternoon on the need for climate action to protect America's natural resources. I caught up with him during the break:
2:15pm - The Senate EPW Majority press staff chipped in personal cash to provide some survival supplies for reporters.
1:49pm - Committee in recess, so I'm grabbing some coffee in the Dirksen cafeteria. Live-blogging will resume at 2:15ish.
1:13pm - Of the Republicans on the panel, only Sen. Inhofe & Sen. Alexander showed up for any portion of the climate & national security discussion. For the last half of it, there were five Democrats and no Republicans. Here's a look at the GOP's empty seats (left side of pic).
1:03pm - Not a single Republican left at the national security portion of the hearing. Telling.
1:01pm - Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) points out to Sen. Inhofe that nowhere in any climate bill does anyone try to tell the Navy how to fuel its ships. Yet another Inhofe smackdown. Been an ugly week for the denier-in-chief.
12:53pm - SAILBOATS! EVERYBODY DRINK!
12:51pm - Sen. Alexander talking. $5 says he repeats his sailboat line to impress Warner. Any takers?
12:43pm - Sen. Inhofe keeps claiming the United States has the largest fossil fuel reserves in the world. Huh? Sure, we have coal, but we're 11th in oil reserves, behind such friendly nations as Iran, Russia and Libya.
12:39pm - Sen. Inhofe is constantly railing against inanimate objects. I'm running out of time! This bill is too many pages!
12:30pm - Boxer summarizes Lt. Gen. Carafano: "You can't predict the future, so don't pass complex legislation."
12:29pm - Final witness is Lt. Gen. James Jay Carafano, who now works for the Heritage Foundation, which has received at least $530,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
12:24pm - Drew Sloan predicts global warming will turn Bangladesh into a failed state. Will that force the US military to get involved?
12:22pm - Maj. Gen. Scales says global warming will happen so slowly, people will migrate long before disaster strikes. Ummm ... no.
12:15pm - All three of the first witnesses from the second panel, Sen. Warner, Hicks and Vice Adm. McGinn -- call global warming a major national security threat.
12:12pm - Here's the witness list for the second panel:
* The Honorable John Warner, United States Senator (Retired)
* Kathleen Hicks, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Forces United States Department of Defense
* Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn USN (Ret.), Member, Military Advisory Board, Center for Naval Analyses
* Major General Robert H. Scales (Ret.)
* Drew Sloan, Fellow, Truman National Security Project
* Lieutenant Colonel James Jay Carafano (Ret.), Deputy Director, Kathryn & Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies; Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, The Heritage Foundation
12:03pm - Just snuck down from the overflow room to the hearing room. Here's my view from the back as former Sen. John Warner (R-VA) begins his testimony.
11:43am - The Sierra Club is once again hosting a live feed of tweets with the #CEJAPA (Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act) tag.
11:38am - Nice job by Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) of pointing out the projected impact of clean energy & climate legislation is only about a dime over a decade, when some parts of Delaware saw that big of a spike in a week over the summer.
11:30am - If an education advocate calls for more education spending without benchmarks for improved learning, they're accused of blindly throwing money at the problem. So why do conservatives think they can call for clean energy incentives without standards for carbon reductions?
11:25am - Google's Dan Reicher calls energy-efficient technology "low-hanging fruit that grows back." Definitely the star of the hearing so far.
11:23am - Google's Dan Reicher calls the smart grid "the nexus between energy technology and information technology."
11:22am - Google's Dan Reicher detailing story after story about how smart grid technology can save consumers hundreds, even thousands of dollars. This is where the deny & delay crowd really gets stumped. The new nuclear plants & more offshore drilling they inevitably fall back on will do nothing to cut energy bills. A smart grid is money in the bank.
11:14am - Sen. Barrasso says "We can't pick winners & losers," then immediately asks how the bill will protect coal companies. The contradictions among the deny & delay crowd are dizzying.
11:10am - Via commenter Phil S 33, Dana Milbank's devastating dismantling of Sen. Inhofe in today's Washington Post:
Then there was poor Inhofe. "The science is more definitive than ever? You keep saying that because you want to believe it so much," he said bitterly. He offered to furnish a list of scientists who once believed in climate change but "who are solidly on the other side right now." The science, he said, "already has shifted" against global-warming theory. "Science is not settled! Everyone knows it's not settled!" [...]
He described the Democrats' proposal as "the largest tax increase in -- in history!" Agitated, his utterances disjointed, Inhofe went on: "Now, I also was -- was kind of -- I don't want any of the media to think just because I had to sit here and listen to our good friend Senator Kerry for 28 minutes, that I don't have responses to everything he said."
Nobody doubted that Inhofe had a response. The doubt was whether the response would make any sense.
11:04am - Is it just me or is it really frustrating that none of the Democratic Senators are going after his ridiculous "let's mandate 100 nuclear power plants and pass the $2 trillion bill directly to ratepayers" idea?
11:01am - Does Sen. Alexander understand basic economics? He's currently arguing raising the price of something does not affect demand of that item.
10:54am - Sen. Inhofe pulls out an odd attack on a 1993 energy tax idea. So does Sen. Inhofe just oppose anything that would lead us to using less energy to do the same stuff? This from the guy who received an incredible $662,506 from oil companies between 2000 & 2008, and hundreds of thousands more from coal companies?
Watch yourself, Jim. Your true intentions are starting to show.
10:48am - Klesse: "They have no expectation of making solar panels in New Jersey!" What does that even mean? I'm actually starting to like this guy. He may be a little crazy. I have no idea why Valero's losing money.
10:44am - Klesse: "We should let industry drill." "We are supportive of green jobs." "What else do you want to hear me say that will let us keep selling people $4 a gallon gas? 'Cause I'll say it." (OK, he didn't say that last part.)
10:41am - Sen. Boxer immediately goes after Valero's Bill Klesse's statement basically that anything that threatens Big Oil's profits is a threat to national security. Boxer puts a study into the record from the Office of Naval Research that global warming is a threat multiplier.
10:37am - The Virginia Manufacturer Association's Brett Vassey is bragging about how Virginia businesses have become more efficient to argue against legislation to help businesses become more efficient. Huh?
10:33am - Note to Valero's Bill Klesse -- if you want to be taken seriously as someone who's not opposed to clean energy, parroting Sen. Barrasso's silly "red white & blue jobs" line is probably not a good idea.
10:30am - Not much to react to here, they're just reading their opening statements, which you can read here (click the witness name).
10:13am - Witnesses from the first panel are reading their opening statements:
- Peter Brehm, Vice President of Business Development & Government Relations, Infinia Corporation
- Dan Reicher, Director, Climate and Energy Initiatives, Google
- Dave Foster, Executive Director, Blue Green Alliance
- The Honorable Michael Nutter, Mayor, City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Kate Gordon, Senior Policy Advisor, Apollo Alliance
- Bill Klesse, Chairman and CEO Valero Energy Corp
- Brett A. Vassey, President and CEO, Virginia Manufacturers Association
9:55am - Has any reporter asked Sen. Barrasso what's not a red, white & blue job? Like, what about an alt rock radio DJ? How about a secretary at a small paper firm in Scranton, PA?
9:52am - I love when conservatives like Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) pull out conservative editorials from conservative newspapers and start reading from them, like we should all be shocked they agree with Barrasso.
9:47am - Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) warns clean energy & climate legislation could raise electricity prices 42% by 2020. OK. My rates in Virginia have gone up 25% in the last year or so due to the rising cost of coal. 42% over 11 years sounds like the steal of the century! Sign me up!
9:43am - Always love when people like Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) say jobs and families are their number one concerns. Like they’re taking some bold stand against the status quo. It’s about as radical as saying you’re for puppies and ice cream.
9:41am - Sen. Alexander asks for the second straight day, "If we had invented a nuclear navy and it was doing exactly what we wanted it to do, why would we suddenly stop building nuclear vessels and start subsidizing sailboats for our navy?" Right, but if the submarines were warming the oceans and killing the fish and melting the polar ice caps, maybe we'd get rid of them. I mean, right? Sen. Alexander?
9:40am - Sen. Alexander's basic premise: We can build 100 new nuclear power plants without it costing anyone anything.
9:37am - Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) starts his remarks by saying, "A couple of weeks ago I was visited by one of the largest turbine-makers in the world ..."
Whoa! Is Lamar Alexander suddenly finding religion on renewable energy???
"... for nuclear plants."
Oh.
Sigh.