Hill Heat

E&E News (on Kerry-Graham) It’s a reasonable position to take, provided they are both comfortable with going after the OCS and after nuclear power.

E&E News I think what Senator Graham and Senator Kerry have put out there is an indicator that, hey, things are possible if we’re willing to perhaps look at how you might meld some of the different ideas that are out there.

Instead of cutting emissions at any cost, we should be working on a policy that incorporates the best ideas of both parties—a policy that accounts for our near-term energy needs, limits costs, and is flexible enough to work under different economic circumstances.

E&E News Now, to be sure, they wrote a column, not a bill. Their outline could be improved, and there’s no guarantee legislation along those lines would pass the Senate. But in my opinion, the framework they laid out in 1,000 words is already better than the policies it took the House 1,400 pages to impose.

E&E News Neither accounts for the cumulative impact of every provision. Limitations and caveats are routinely noted.

Mobile Press-Register Our conceit is such that we think we can manage the climate, we think we can manage a huge portion of the most dynamic economy the world’s ever known, and I’m wary of it.

E&E News “No, it’s not a game changer,” Voinovich said about Kerry and Graham. “It just sounds really good on paper.”

E&E News There is no guarantee that the committee work will actually lead to the 60 votes needed to defeat an expected Republican filibuster. For instance, things have not gone as smoothly as Democrats hoped on health care, another of President Obama’s top agenda items. “I hope it’ll make them more open to a solution,” said Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “It hasn’t worked that way on health care. Not yet.”

McCook Gazette Sen. Mike Johanns spoke on the Senate floor today regarding the impact cap-and-trade legislation would have on American agriculture. In advance of a hearing to be held on Wednesday in the Senate Agriculture Committee, Johanns outlined how agriculture will be hammered with increased production costs as a result of cap-and-trade. He reiterated that state- and commodity-specific analyses of cap-and-trade are essential for a successful evaluation of the true costs and Administration-promised benefits.

E&E News “I’m finding there’s a desire by the people we’re talking to to want to find a solution,” Kerry told reporters last week, citing meetings he has held with Brown, Lincoln, Pryor and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).

Roll Call Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who promised to enact global warming legislation during his 2008 presidential campaign, said none of the principal Democratic negotiators on climate change has reached out to him. He noted he is working, as he did last year, with Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) on a climate change bill. “I have not lost my zeal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he said. “But I don’t think [Democratic leaders] have any Republicans.”

Roll Call “Right now we’re focused on health care, and no one wants to think about the next big hard thing until we finish this big hard thing,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said. She joked that the success of a climate bill could “depend on if we’re still speaking to each other after health care.”

E&E News “There is a tremendous amount of sequestering potential, but we have to have it work,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). “It has to have a high level of integrity, if there is too much of a loophole it will be irrelevant and ineffective.”

Roll Call Still, Democrats said the bare majority that House leaders eked out for their bill last month has many worried about the ability of Senate Democrats to cobble together the 60 votes needed to beat back a filibuster. “If they had a close vote in the House, it makes it more difficult in the Senate to get us to 60 votes,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), whose vote Democratic leaders will have to court.

E&E News Back across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will be in position by late September to work through all of the different climate bills that clear the committees. At that point, he plans to open up his door to lawmakers who still have concerns and demands, following a pattern many remember in 1990 when then Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine) helped construct the last major set of Clean Air Act amendments. “That’s what my responsibility is, so that’s what I have to do.” Reid told E&E last week. . . Asked about the path to 60 votes, Reid acknowledged he will have plenty of work to do at every stage of the process. “I’ve got six chairmen to deal with for beginners,” he said.

E&E News Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a member of the Agriculture Committee, urged Harkin and ranking member Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) to play an even greater role in slowing down the climate bill compared with the House, where Peterson raised objections but ultimately went along for the ride. “I hope that both he [Harkin] and Saxby take the climate change bill by the horns and corral it,” Roberts said.

E&E News “If you just go through the members of the committee, and you figure it out, all of them are going to have some major problems,” said Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio). “So they’re going to have to try and satisfy them. And in the process of trying to satisfy them, they’re going to lose support from the environmental groups that want us to throw the gauntlet down and take a leadership role.”

E&E News On the surface, Boxer’s EPW Committee would appear to be a cake walk for moving a climate bill. “We have a pretty distinct majority, so if we can’t, shame on us,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), referring to his party’s 12-7 edge in the committee. On her left, Boxer is hearing demands from Whitehouse and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) to tighten up the emission limits beyond the House-passed bill’s 17 percent target for 2020. “Anything we can’t do goes off the table,” Whitehouse said last week. “The move on the Senate floor will be rightward. And therefore, we’ve got to do our job to keep as many possibilities open for the floor as possible.”

E&E News “I expect there will be a modest nuclear title in the bill coming out of committee and we will add to that on the floor,” Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee, told reporters earlier this week. This conclusion comes after discussions with Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), he said.

E&E News Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), for example, took issue with EPW ranking member James Inhofe after the Oklahoma Republican interrupted him during questioning. “Damn it,” Carper said. “I want to be given the respect that I gave you.”

Reuters Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, a Democrat, said the extra time will give lawmakers more time to craft a better bill. “We have this extra two months, it’s been almost a gift. We need to put it to good use,” Carper said. He said Democrats could possibly attract more support from moderate Republicans by doing more to promote nuclear power in the legislation. “I think it’s important for us to remember that nuclear energy is carbon free and that there is an expanded role for nuclear,” Carper said.

E&E News Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), another possible supporter, said the money or free allocations flowing to special interests is “offensive.” “Certainly our energy bill has nuclear in it and hopefully it sees the light of day, but it is not going to make up for the tremendous defects that occur in the House bill,” Corker said.

IB Times A major new energy bill won’t spur economic development and create new jobs, Republican Senators said Thursday during a public hearing. . . “If the bill actually creates jobs then there will be no need for any of these, a section on unemployment benefits, job relocation and all the rest of that,” Oklahoma Senator Inhofe said during his opening comments at the hearings today.

Talk Radio News “Waxman-Markey is a tax increase on the American people, that’s the whole point of cap-and-trade, which is to make energy more expensive so we use it less,” said Ranking Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

Politico In March, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) hosted a dinner at his Georgetown home to discuss how to move climate change legislation through the Senate. Attendees included Chu, Stern, Jackson, energy and climate czar Carol Browner, science and technology adviser John Holdren and Stern’s deputy, Jonathan Pershing. Economic adviser Lawrence Summers was to be there, too, but canceled after Obama called him away for a last-minute meeting. “Everyone is involved,” said Kerry. “People are all doing a lot of different meetings and coming together each week to share the information and strategy.”

Casa Grande Valley Newspapers “At a time when the economy remains shaky and unemployment has reached a 25-year high, Congress should not be considering new taxes. They would be bad for families and would slow the economic recovery as well. The Senate could take up the House legislation, known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act, though it may not do so until September. That would give all Americans time to register their opinions on the bill. . . This year won’t be the first time that the Senate has considered cap-and-trade. In 2008, similar legislation went down to defeat, and this year’s version will once again face opposition from Senate Republicans and some moderate Democrats. If Americans communicate their opinions about this bill to their representatives in Congress, I am convinced it can be defeated again.”

E&E News “Adding a nuclear title to the climate change bill would be just one of many improvements needed to secure Senator Landrieu’s vote,” said Aaron Saunders, a spokesman for Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

E&E News Fellow fence-sitter Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) also wants to see incentives for nuclear energy in any climate bill she would support but also more for biomass, natural gas and other fuels as part of an “all of the above” approach, Lincoln spokeswoman Katie Laning Niebaum said.

E&E News Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a key potential Republican supporter, told reporters this week including a nuclear title is “vital” to his support for a climate bill. But McCain has also roundly criticized many other parts of the House climate bill, which Boxer has stated is the starting point for her committee draft. McCain said the “1,400-page monstrosity” House bill contains too many giveaways to special interests and trade protection measures.

E&E News Sen. Lisa Murkowski, (R-Alaska), ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, would welcome a stronger nuclear title in the climate bill but there are several other problems, such as the cost of the bill, said spokesman Robert Dillon. “At this point she is not supporting a cap-and-trade bill,” Dillon said. “No one can give us a clear estimate about the cost. ... There are more questions than answers that people need to have before they are going to say they are going to start supporting this bill.”

E&E News Reid this week said he would be open to a nuclear component but, “we just have to do it the right way.”

E&E News Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said authors of the House bill knew this when they wrote provisions that set up Labor Department-led worker retraining programs. “There’s no credible analysis that suggests this bill will be a net job creator,” Voinovich said.

Politico Administration officials have also been frequent visitors to a regular Tuesday meeting of as many as 20 senators focused on climate and energy legislation. Jackson, Stern, Browner, senior political strategist David Axelrod and legislative liaison Jay Heimbach have all attended the meeting. “When they are invited, they come,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a frequent attendee. “We’ve been very pleased by the responsiveness of the administration.”

Ideologically, Specter is in line with Democrats like Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), who worries that Obama’s clean economy proposal may “suck money” from his state, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), who is “against forcing petrochemical companies” to “bear the brunt of new costs,” and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), who worries cap and trade “could have a negative impact on our economy.”

Specter, whose top donors include the electric utilities Exelon Corporation and PPL Corporation, has told Pennsylvania students that “his main platform in running for re-election is global warming.”