Passage of Energy Bill Seen Doubtful in Senate

This story appears in the July 5 print edition of Transport Topics.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators left a closed-door White House meeting with President Obama last week divided over whether energy and climate legislation could pass and uncertain what form it might take.

Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) exited the June 29 meeting vowing to bring a bill to the floor before the August recess, Senate Democrats apparently have yet to agree on a strategy for garnering the 60 votes needed to pass the legislation.

“Democrats want to develop a comprehensive, national energy plan that creates millions of jobs that can never be outsourced, reduces pollution, strengthens our national security and ends our dependence on oil,” Reid said in a statement. “Our caucus remains ready to get to work, but this effort can go nowhere without bipartisan support. We need brave Republicans to step up and demonstrate the same commitment and leadership on this issue that Democrats have.”

In a statement, the White House characterized the meeting as a “constructive exchange about the need to pass energy and climate legislation this year.”

However, Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), a key GOP member of the Senate Energy Committee, said the meeting “sent a clear signal” that cap-and-trade legislation previously introduced by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has a “slim” chance of passage.

Voinovich said in a statement that there seemed to be a consensus that legislation offered by Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) “may be a viable path forward in the Senate.”

“While in need of improvement, it has bipartisan support and presents a variety of policy tools to expand domestic clean energy resources and reduce emissions,” he said.

Bingaman’s bill provides incentives to develop cleaner energy sources but does not include a cap-and-trade component. It also would require utilities to produce at least 11% of their power from wind, solar, biomass and other renewable energies and 4% could be achieved through energy-efficient improvements.

Several Senate Democrats have urged President Obama to take the lead in gaining bipartisan support for legislation that could involve a cap-and-trade program to limit carbon emissions.

Reid has said that although a bill will likely get to the Senate floor, he was uncertain of its final form or what strategy may be employed by Democrats. Reid said, “A lot of that depends on what the White House is going to do to help us get something done.”

The Senate remains deeply divided on energy and climate change legislation, unable to act on a cap-and-trade bill approved by the House a year ago or to move on any of several bills introduced in the Senate.

The effect of potential climate legislation for the trucking industry is unclear, but American Trucking Associations has said if oil producers are part of a cap-and-trade program, the result would be significantly higher diesel prices.

Obama last month expressed his dissatisfaction with a lack of progress being made by the Senate on clean energy and climate legislation.

“The Senate has an opportunity before the August recess and the elections to stand up and move forward on something that could have enormous, positive consequences for generations to come,” Obama told reporters after meeting with his Cabinet on June 22.

Democrats attended a party caucus during June but did not reach any consensus on which of several bills to move forward, Bill Wicker, a Democratic spokesman for the Senate Energy and Resources Committee, told Transport Topics.

Several energy and climate change bills have been introduced in the Senate, including the Kerry-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill, but none of them has gained the bipartisan support needed to take it to the Senate floor for a vote.

A Reid spokeswoman confirmed that the majority leader in past months had deferred to Kerry and Lieberman to take the lead in finding votes for their bill.

However, Reid himself has been busy refereeing disputes among Democratic committee chairmen who have “strongly differing views” about the bill’s contents and how aggressive it should be, the spokeswoman said.

Focusing on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Reid sent a letter to eight key Senate Democratic committee chairmen asking for their input on clean energy legislation by the July 4 recess.

“As your committee works to develop that legislation, I think it is extremely important that you each examine what could be included in a comprehensive energy bill that would address the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico,” Reid wrote.

“We must act soon to ensure there are no statutory impediments to quick action in the Gulf of Mexico and to moving forward rapidly on a safer, cleaner and more secure energy policy,” Reid said.