After the euphoria of a couple of weeks ago, in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced a high-risk "Go Big or Go Home" strategy of attaching a climate bill to a politically popular spill bill (e.g., S.3516), sober reality set in as the Senators realized they didn't have 60 votes for any climate bill to attach to the spill bill. Whoops.
Democratic Senators on recess: They're still bickering, they're still dithering about getting to 60 votes, they're running out of time, and they're preparing to go medium rather than go big. One major player is missing in action, and another has his own personal enthusiasm gap. And it's becoming increasingly likely that whatever will be put forth can't be labeled a climate bill. "The climate debate is like Weekend at Bernie's: the enviros are walking around like this thing is still alive, but we can all see it’s dead," says a lobbyist.
Politico claims a "growing consensus" on the shape of the bill, yet to be written, to hit the Senate floor the week of July 19 or 26: "offshore drilling reform plus a renewable electricity mandate – but probably no price on carbon." In other words, an energy-only bill wastes a crisis. At most -- and the tea leaves aren't predicting with any certainty -- the bill will include a utility-only carbon cap: some mechanism to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired and other electric power plants.
- Where's President Obama?
An energy bill wrapped in an enigma: At Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard points out the leaderless, directionless nature of the climate/energy bill mess: "Now, just days before the July session resumes, no one seems to have any idea where things are headed. "Staff are preparing options for members to review next week but no decisions yet," said Reid spokesman Jim Manley." And:
Environmental advocates, who have now watched a host of climate bills emerge and then quickly fade in the past year, are beginning to wonder why Obama isn't stepping in to help. A group of nine major environmental and progressive groups sent a letter to Obama last week calling for him to take a more active role on the Senate bill, a sign that they're growing impatient. "The president has to directly engage with his staff at a detailed level to produce a bill with carbon limits that can pass," said Krupp.
Without some direction from Democratic leadership — most importantly, the guy over on Pennsylvania Avenue — the path ahead for energy and climate remains unclear. "Let's be honest, we're adrift," said Brune. "There is no plan. There is no clear author or director or coordinator of a plan."
Climate Progress has posted the letter from nine environmental and progressive groups begging the President for "your direct, personal involvement."
Meanwhile, yesterday President Obama visited an electric vehicle factory in Kansas City to tout clean energy: "we’re seeing similar things all across America, with incentives and investments that are creating wind turbines and solar panels. We’re seeing investments in energy-efficient appliances and home-building materials, and in advanced battery technologies and clean energy vehicles." The words "carbon" and "climate" are, again, conspicuous only by their absence.
Allegedly the White House prefers a bill that prices carbon, but even Secretary of Energy Steven Chu considers a utility-only cap an acceptable outcome.
- Where's Senator Bingaman?
Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) looks to play the same role as Max Baucus (D-MT) did during healthcare reform: plodding, centrist, publicly doubting, maddening, blinders on to all but his own bill. Here, the bill is S.1462, the American Clean Energy Leadership Act, an energy-only bill that expands offshore Gulf of Mexico drilling among others.
Politico poses the headline: Climate Bill Hopes Hang on Bingaman. "Here’s what Bingaman does do: He slowly, carefully and methodically hammers out pragmatic, detailed energy legislation with Republican partners in long, dull markups that don’t draw attention but do produce solid pieces of legislation forged in the order of the committee process." Bingaman has begun to work up a utility-only climate bill. However, he sounds decidedly unenthusiastic.
On a Sunday talk show last weekend -- and Bingaman hardly ever does talk shows -- he sounded remarkably pessimistic on everything other than his ACELA bill. Highlights: "What we’re not in agreement on yet is what would be done on the direct limitation of greenhouse gases. And that -- frankly, I don’t know exactly how that will evolve." And, on a utilities-only cap: "There are clearly good proposals that could be put before the Senate to restrict greenhouse gases, particularly in the utility sector but...I’m somewhat dubious if the votes are there to do even that piece. "
Ambinder explains the politics of a utility-only carbon cap:
The news out of the bipartisan meeting on climate today is best contained in Sen. Olympia Snowe's statement upon its conclusion that an economy-wide carbon pricing scheme is untenable, which is why she believes "that one possibility is to more narrowly target a carbon pricing program through a uniform nationwide system solely on the power sector, which is the sector with the most to lose from the EPA regulations and it's also the sector in which businesses actually make decisions today based on prices 20 to 30 years in the future."
That happens to be the melded approach that the White House and Sen. Harry Reid are proposing. Start with the utility sector and some stationary sources of power and go from there. Snowe is a signaler: if she's on board with a bill, then Sen. Susan Collins, Scott Brown, and George Voinovich would be inclined to vote for it, as would Florida's George LeMieux, who doesn't want to vote against a climate bill.
Bingaman seems to be reasonably satisfied with the weak 15%-electricity-from-renewable-sources in his ACELA bill. However, ACELA may do more harm than good. Politico quotes a bluntly truthful environmental lobbyist
"One item of note on the RES in the ACELA bill: it sucks. Its near-term targets for the amount of renewables are actually LOWER than what we'd get without a policy, and it allows a huge carve-out for energy efficiency ...Bottom line: a RES would indeed be the centerpiece of an energy-only bill, but it better not be the ACELA RES."
- Where's the end to Big Oil subsidies?
Oil is one of America's most heavily subsidized businesses. Don't expect those subsidies to be touched in the bill. It would make too much sense. Besides, the American Petroleum Institute claims that new taxes are job-killers. Hint, Democratic Senators: in this rare circumstance, a stronger bill more hostile to Big Oil will be easier to pass than a weaker bill friendlier to Big Oil.
- While Senators Dither....
Every day the gap, between the maximum that can be expected from the Senate and the minimum that scientists tell us is necessary, widens. Even a good energy-only bill -- which ACELA definitely is not -- will only slowly reduce demand for electricity-related carbon, without touching the supply of carbon. A utility-only cap on carbon will only affect roughly 1/3 of carbon emissions, less if special interests succeed in watering it down. But, hey, Senators, it's not like we're facing a f*cking planetary emergency or anything.
A two degree Celsius rise in temperatures -- which scientists generally concede is inevitable -- will make heat waves commonplace by 2039. Of course, during a heatwave, people reach for the air conditioner. The planet has its own air conditioners, called the Arctic and Antarctic. However, never before in recorded history has there been this little ice in the Arctic in early summer. It seems that Arctic ice is more sensitive to carbon than previously thought. Keep that in mind while traveling from air-conditioned car to air-conditioned office, Senators.