Lieberman, Kerry make last-ditch appeal on scaled-back climate bill

July 13, 2010

The Hill

Darren Goode and Ben Geman

The Senate sponsors of a sweeping climate change bill are drafting a scaled-back version focused on electric power plants in a bid to salvage a role for greenhouse gas curbs in the Senate energy debate.

Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) this week will start circulating a draft of their narrowed plan as they try to convince Democratic leaders to include a carbon pricing component in a broad energy package that may hit the Senate floor next week.

“I am very optimistic that we can pass something here that deals with energy and gets us started in the right direction,” Kerry said Monday. “If that’s the best we can do, that’s the best we can do."

Kerry acknowledged that his broader effort to address climate change fell victim to a long and politically bruising healthcare debate and other priorities this election year.

“We have very little time, a lot of pressures, including election pressures, and we are just going to have to be realistic,” he told reporters in the Capitol.

Lieberman, Kerry and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) have had staff-level talks about the utility-focused the idea and other options, Lieberman said. “Our staff people are giving drafts to [Reid],” Lieberman said Monday. “We are working hard to convince him to do a strong bill, and I am encouraged.”

Energy legislation is likely to be among the topics discussed when President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with senior Senate Democrats at the White House Tuesday to talk about what they can get done before the August recess.

Climate advocates face an uphill climb winning a spot for mandatory emissions curbs in the bill that is expected to blend provisions responding to the BP oil spill – such as stronger drilling safeguards – with measures to curb oil use and boost alternative energy.

Reid is likely to make decisions later this week about the bill's scope.

Kerry and Lieberman also hope to attract Republicans who may be open to a more limited approach, rather than the carbon-pricing plan the pair unveiled in May that also included manufacturers, refiners, motor fuels and other sectors.

Some Senate sources have dubbed their evolving draft a “utility first” plan, signaling that perhaps manufacturers and other sources of pollution could eventually be covered as well, possibly voluntarily.

“That would certainly be an ideal expression,” Kerry said of the “utility first” option. But he added, “We’ve got to figure out where the votes are here, we can’t drive this exclusively by policy right now. It’s trickier than that.”

Kerry said a new plan “may have some voluntary components to it, some purely optional components to it.”

Kerry and Lieberman will meet Tuesday with environmental group leaders and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association to discuss a final push to price carbon. They are also hosting their regularly scheduled Tuesday gathering with other senators as they struggle to keep carbon provisions in the mix.

Senate staff and officials with the Edison Electric Institute – a trade association that represents investor-owned power companies – met at the White House last Thursday to talk about a carbon-pricing plan focused on electric utilities.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) has promoted the utility-only idea, but given no indication yet that he would actually offer up a plan. Bingaman spokesman Bill Wicker said several Senate offices have shown interest in the idea and that Bingaman’s staff has provided background and shared text with some. But that does not equate to actively selling the bill, Wicker said.

While aides for Bingaman and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) have talked about the idea, Snowe said Monday she had not personally seen his plan. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has also shown interest.

“Utility-only seems to be a pretty reasonable place to start,” Graham said. “That is the only thing that probably has any chance of getting support.” Graham at one point was working with Kerry and Lieberman on a climate and energy strategy but divorced himself months ago from the talks.
 
Graham said neither he nor his staff have seen any updated carbon pricing proposal. 

Aides for several Senate offices met over the recess, including those representing Reid, Kerry, Lieberman, Bingaman and Snowe. But aides did not report any significant progress toward any one particular legislative option.

Bingaman is mostly focused on pushing two bipartisan measures that are expected to form key parts of the Senate energy package: a bill focusing on renewable electricity, transmission and efficiency that the committee approved last year, and a plan that toughens offshore drilling safeguards that the panel approved late last month.

Reid has not yet scheduled a formal sit-down among relevant committee chairs and may not need to this week, spokesman Jim Manley said.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), who is seen as a swing vote on climate matters, said Monday that he doubts the Senate can advance any carbon-pricing mechanisms. Voinovich noted that the sprint to the August recess means that even a package of only energy measures will be tough to move.

“We are running out of time,” he told reporters. “It is going to be a real climb up the mountain.” Voinovich said the “only realistic thing” would be taking up an energy bill that draws largely from the measure Bingaman’s committee passed last year and a separate bill to curb oil use written by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.).
 
Voinovich said he would seek to add provisions to boost nuclear power that he is crafting, and a measure he’s working on with Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) that would speed deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies.

Voinovich and Rockefeller represent bipartisan concern among some coal-state senators over the effect of carbon-pricing legislation. “Nothing before me grabs my attention sufficiently,” Rockefeller said. He added that Reid has given him floor time to offer as an amendment a two-year delay on EPA regulations to give Congress more time to address the issue legislatively.

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