Climate Bill Has ‘Slim’ Chance of Passage in Senate This Year, Hill Observers Say
This story appears in the Jan. 18 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — The prospects of the Senate passing controversial cap-and-trade climate legislation in 2010 appear to be very slim, a panel of Washington insiders said last week.
A Senate version of the House cap-and-trade bill, sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), narrowly passed in June but now is “effectively stalled” by “bipartisan concerns” that it would cause job losses and drive up energy costs for consumers, John Stoody, chief counsel to Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), said at a session of the Transportation Research Board here on Jan. 11.
“The prospect of more lost jobs is about the last thing that folks on the Hill want to consider now,” Stoody said. “The members are not eager to take on something that threatens their own electability in the 2010 elections.
“If you want to be an optimist, you could say maybe the chances are 5% to get a bill in 2010 but are probably closer to 0% in terms of practical reality,” he added.
“One thing we know is that this issue is never going away,” Stoody said. “A lot of stakeholders are very passionate about this issue, and they will keep pushing for this issue. In some regards, it’s a question of when, not if.”
A Senate version of the Waxman-Markey House bill, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), was approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in November but without any participation from committee Republicans, who boycotted the vote (click here for previous story).
Because the committee’s consideration of the bill was not bipartisan, Russ LaMotte, an environmental specialist with the Washington law firm Beveridge & Diamond, said the legislation was “stillborn” when it left the committee.
“I think the general impression is that the Kerry-Boxer bill that was passed out of committee is a useful point of reference but is not longer a vehicle for action in the Senate,” LaMotte said.
Because of political realities, a busy Senate calendar and elections this fall, he said, the passage of any cap-and-trade legislation this year is “unlikely.”
Changes in the makeup of the Senate and House after the elections this fall also could make the passage of climate change bill more difficult, LaMotte said.
But Ted Boling, senior counsel for the President’s Council on Environmental Quality, said that the Obama administration’s action initiating regulation of greenhouse gas emissions puts pressure on Congress to act.
“The absence of a cap-and trade bill does not mean that there will not be federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions,” LaMotte said.
Indeed, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with its plans to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if Congress does not act.
In a Jan. 12 memo to EPA employees, Administrator Lisa Jackson said that action on climate change is one of her top priorities in 2010. However, in past statements, Jackson has said she would prefer that Congress pass legislation on climate change, rather than her agency take on the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions alone.
While she agreed that the consensus on passage of a cap-and-trade bill is “pessimistic,” Nancy Kete, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, said some people think the bill could be re-energized because “all the alternatives to passing cap-and-trade are worse.”
Kete said the concessions and compromises made by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of large businesses including energy and chemical companies, to pass Waxman-Markey in the House would “fall apart if we don’t have something like Waxman-Markey.”
Scott Belcher, president of the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, agreed.
“If we have legislation this year or next, it’s probably going to be driven by industry, who wants certainty,” Belcher said. “They need to know what the rules are and how to do it, and then they can make their business decisions.”
