Climate change on the back burner?
By: Lisa Lerer
Climate change has slipped so far down on the agenda that at least one key committee chairman has suggested it might have to wait until after the 2010 elections.
A number of factors are conspiring against the Senate version of the bill: a Republican boycott on the Environment and Public Works Committee, a new EPA analysis that could take at least five weeks and wide-ranging disagreements among six competing Senate committee leaders who have jurisdiction.
“Some people are talking about not doing it until after the 2010 election,” Commerce Committee Chairman John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday.
Rockefeller’s comments came as Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) announced that the Environmental Protection Agency would run another comprehensive study of the final legislation after it is compiled by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Rockefeller is one of the leading critics of Boxer’s bill, saying it doesn’t include enough incentives for the coal industry.
David McIntosh, EPA’s associate administrator for congressional relations, told Boxer’s committee Tuesday that such a study would take at least five weeks — which guarantees that nothing will be done before international climate talks this December in Copenhagen.
The additional study was announced in hopes of placating the seven Republicans on the committee, who are boycotting hearings on the legislation until additional economic analysis is completed.
Boxer has pushed to pass legislation out of the EPW Committee before the Copenhagen talks, saying that it would give the international community a strong signal on where the United States is headed on climate policy.
But before the EPA can even begin to examine the bill, the six Senate committees with jurisdiction over pieces of the bill must finish their work on the legislation. So far, only one — the Energy and Natural Resources Committee — has passed a climate bill. At least two other committees have yet to set a date to mark up climate legislation, and several of the committees are chaired by moderate Democrats who are much more hesitant about embracing a cap-and-trade bill.
“Obviously, it’s not an issue we will be readily addressing this year,” said Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, on whom Democrats are counting to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster.
Democratic leaders also seem unwilling to expend much political capital on climate change when they aren’t even sure when health care reform might get done.
“We’re not going to be bound by any timelines” on health care, Reid told reporters after a closed-door lunch meeting with Senate Democrats.
The more time health care takes, say supporters, the further a climate bill most likely gets pushed back.
“Obviously, given where we are today, we have to wait for the [Congressional Budget Office] scoring on the health care bill,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). “That’s going to push us back.”
But Rockefeller warned that the difficulty of passing a bill will increase as the elections draw closer.
“It does make it tougher; everyone gets more scared,” he said.
Republicans plan to use cap and trade as a line of attack next year — particularly against vulnerable Democrats from industrial states.
But even with all these obstacles, Kerry, who has become the lead negotiator on climate change, still thinks a deal could be made by Christmas.
“I absolutely believe it’s possible. It’s Nov. 3 today. We’re talking about seven weeks from now.”
