Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today confirmed that floor debate on a sweeping energy and global warming bill that will be sold to the American public in part as an economic stimulus measure will be held early next year.

“We’re going to try to do that sometime in the spring,” Reid told reporters when asked about the window for moving a climate bill onto the Senate floor.

So E&E News PM (subs. req’d) reports.   Ideally the debate would start by the end of February, so the Senate vote could be finished by early spring, as I recently wrote.   The bipartisan team of Senators crafting a bill with the White House plan on a blueprint by Copenhagen:

Kerry and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) are taking the lead in writing the climate and energy bill with a goal of releasing a blueprint before U.N. global warming negotiations start Dec. 7 in Copenhagen.

The good news is that Reid sees this bill as part of the economic stimulus and jobs package the administration is putting together, which should increase the motivation to pass it:

“I think if we do it right, the energy bill, the climate bill can be very, very job productive,” Reid said.

Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) met with Reid and four other Democratic committee leaders yesterday to map out the legislative agenda for the rest of this year and early 2010….

“This is a jobs bill,” Kerry said. “This is without question a jobs bill. I’d say this is the biggest jobs bill staring us in the face, without any question, and we’ll prove that as we go down the road in the next days. So if you want to do a jobs bill, this is the bill to do. And I’d argue that with the president very, very forcefully.”

The bill certainly can drive early investment in clean energy through pollution reduction incentives, tax breaks, efficiency standards — and even through the carbon caps, as Nobelist Paul Krugman explained back in May:

Right now, the biggest problem facing our economy is plunging business investment. Businesses see no reason to invest, since they’re awash in excess capacity, thanks to the housing bust and weak consumer demand.

But suppose that Congress were to mandate gradually tightening emission limits, starting two or three years from now. This would have no immediate effect on prices. It would, however, create major incentives for new investment — investment in low-emission power plants, in energy-efficient factories and more.

To put it another way, a commitment to greenhouse gas reduction would, in the short-to-medium run, have the same economic effects as a major technological innovation: It would give businesses a reason to invest in new equipment and facilities even in the face of excess capacity. And given the current state of the economy, that’s just what the doctor ordered.

This short-run economic boost isn’t the main reason to move on climate-change policy. The important thing is that the planet is in danger, and the longer we wait the worse it gets. But it is an extra reason to move quickly.

So can we afford to save the planet? Yes, we can. And now would be a very good time to get started.

Precisely.

The bill should be written so that the cap-and-trade doesn’t start until 2013, well after the recession is over, but ideally with funding to accelerate clean technology into the marketplace frontloaded to start immediately, funding that can be deficit-neutral because it is offset by allowances that will be auctioned later.

Note:  I am proposing the cap start one year later than the current bills.  That’s because the bill is going to become law later than people thought, giving less time to set up all the rules for 2012 trading, and because of the recession, which has knocked CO2 levels down sharply (see “EIA stunner: By year’s end, we’ll be 8.5% below 2005 levels of CO2 — halfway to climate bill’s 2020 target“).  That means 2012 was probably going to have an over-allocation of allowances anyway.  Putting the start of the cap off one year therefore won’t actually reduce the amount of emissions reductions the bill achieves — quite the reverse, it’ll probably reduce the early surplus of allowances distributed.

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Buried in the E&E News (subs. req’d) story this morning about the Kerry-Boxer bill is this piece of news:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said floor action this year remains on the agenda. Asked yesterday whether the Senate is on track to pass a climate bill before December’s international climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, he replied, “Yup.”

While I don’t think it’s crucial, I certainly would like to see a fast track for the bill.  Two guesses as to whether these comments by Reid get anywhere near as much attention in the status quo media as his earlier comments that the bill might not get to the floor this year.

Kerry and Boxer intentionally left out the details of key provisions needed to bring along moderates and Republicans, including a nuclear title and final negotiations on coal with carbon capture and storage. Still, the reaction wasn’t as bad as I had feared:

Plans to include new natural gas incentives drew attention as lawmakers last night began digesting the long-awaited bill.

A new “clean energy” provision rewards companies that switch from power sources with higher emissions than the 2007 power sector average — such as coal-fired or oil-fired power plants — to cleaner fuels including gas.

The plan received high marks from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) who said it is a “positive step.”

“Anything we do to promote natural gas would be a very, very smart thing to do,” Landrieu said. “The leaders are hearing from many different parts of the country how much natural gas is out there.”

Landrieu was among nine senators who sent a letter last week to Boxer lobbying for greater incentives for natural gas. Natural gas producers have been aggressively lobbying senators to win greater incentives for the fuel and have garnered support from some swing votes, including Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).

Natural gas power plants could potentially qualify for the incentives as a fuel that emits 50 percent less carbon dioxide than coal and 30 percent less than oil, as a backup power source for wind, solar and other renewable energy and as a fuel that could utilize CCS technology.

But the provisions on their own appeared quite unlikely to bring Landrieu on board. “I’m still not convinced that the cap-and-trade framework is the best way to create a carbon constrained future,” she said. “I am not committed to cap and trade under any circumstances.”

Hmm.  That last sentence is confusing.  I’m going to take the positive spin that he means there are some circumstances under which she could support a cap-and-trade pollution reduction and investment bill.  Still, she’s pretty doubtful.

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Graham both said they are seeking major incentives for building new nuclear power plants.

The draft circulating yesterday contains a nuclear energy research title to boost ways of expanding the life of current plants. It also calls for new research to improve spent fuel management and increased grants for nuclear industry work force development.

“This bill does not get us where we need to go on nukes, but it’s a start,” Graham said, adding he plans for more talks with Kerry on the issue.

McCain said he is seeking provisions on fuel storage, recycling and greater loan guarantees for nuclear facilities. He said that the draft bill’s 2020 emissions target would be impossible without a substantial nuclear power title. “Frankly, I don’t see how significant reductions are obtainable unless you have nuclear power, so I don’t pay much attention to the goals,” he said.

That seems not fatally negative.  Assuming the bill on the floor has slightly weaker targets and a substantial nuclear power title, it would seem to me that McCain is gettable, especially if Obama were to lobby him personally and ask for his help, which would certainly be worth it if McCain can bring Graham with him.

Some Democrats, like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), are pushing legislation they say would empower the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to implement robust rules to prevent manipulation and undue speculation.

But others — notably Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) — who say regulators have been far too lax in policing energy derivatives trading say these markets should not be allowed at all for carbon.

“I’m not a big fan of trading in general in carbon markets,” Cantwell said. But the senator said she nonetheless welcomed the release of the legislation. “We’re happy the bill is moving. That’s the key thing, because we all want to put a price on carbon.”

Cantwell’s gonna vote for the bill.  I’ll bet that Dorgan will at least vote for cloture, to end the inevitable and immoral conservative filibuster — but again, Obama will need to personally intervene.

Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) put out this tough statement:

“The climate legislation proposed today by Senators Boxer and Kerry is a disappointing step in the wrong direction and I am against it.

“Requiring 20 percent emission reductions by 2020 is unrealistic and harmful – it is simply not enough time to deploy the carbon capture and storage (CCS) and energy efficiency technologies we need.  Period.

“Our nation cannot survive without energy from coal and any viable climate policy must solidify our future by focusing on technology to make coal cleaner faster.

“I will continue studying the bill and all of its implications for our state and the coal industry. This is by no means the defining word on climate legislation in the Senate.

“I remain adamant in my conviction not to support any bill that might threaten the economy, workers or families across West Virginia.

“We should take the time to approach these issues with absolute care and diligence – they require nothing less.”

So the final bill will move in his direction.  I think he’ll support it.  Heck, I’m such an optimist I think there’s a 50-50 chance Byrd will vote for cloture.

Related Links:

Obama administration officials grateful for early spring

Inhofe to Boxer: “We Won, You Lost, Now Get a Life!”

Merkley wants Senate jobs bill to help finance building efficiency retrofits

Here's how the first line of the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act [PDF] begins: "Mr. KERRY (for himself and Mrs. BOXER) introduced the following bill ..."

See whose name is first there?

It's not "Mr. Kerry and Mrs. Boxer introduced" either. He's introducing it. This is John Kerry's bill. Boxer has signed on as a co-sponsor.

Word has it this decision came down from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) himself.

It's widely acknowledged that Boxer bungled the Lieberman-Warner bill last year, particularly in managing (or not, as the case may be) the floor debate. And there are rumors that she's already stepped on toes and pissed a bunch of people off in the process of putting this bill together. For instance, earlier this month a group of eight Dem senators sent Boxer some legislative language on carbon capture and sequestration. They said it was "imperative" for her to include the language in the bill, not language senators use lightly. These were exactly the swing Dems Boxer will need votes from: Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Mark Warner (Va.), Arlen Specter (Penn.), Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Tom Carper (Del.), Bob Casey Jr. (Penn.), and Joe Lieberman (Conn.). Suffice to say, the language isn't in the bill.

Some of the grumbling is probably just the typical Capitol rumor-mongering, and some is undoubtedly related to the fact that she's a strong woman who speaks bluntly, but perception is reality in D.C., and for whatever reason, Dems don't have faith that Boxer can manage this process. She's just not that well liked -- except by Reid, which is why he allowed her to stay on as co-sponsor.

Kerry's Senate record isn't exactly littered with major accomplishments either, but from all accounts he's completely thrown himself into this. It'll be a real test of his chops, and if he defies the odds and shepherds it all the way to passage, he will finally have the Kennedy-sized accomplishment he's always wanted.

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2009: The year so many met so often to talk so much about the perilous state of the climate -- and as of September, accomplished so little.  Will this week be the charm?

During several different international meetings this year, nations have been getting into position for this December's international climate treaty talks in Copenhagen.

This week, they're all gathering again.  On Tuesday, the U.N. is holding a day-long Climate Summit (alongside its annual, two-week General Assembly) in New York City.  And on Thursday and Friday, the Group of 20 (G20) leading world economies is gathering in Pittsburgh, its third meeting of the year to deal with the global economic meltdown.

While climate is not formally on the G20's agenda, some are hoping that President Obama will come off his speech at the New York event ready to signal to other world leaders that the U.S. will lead on forging a strong replacement to the Kyoto Protocol treaty to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, which expires in 2013.  Its successor is supposed to be largely finalized at December's global-warming talks.

New York City is playing host to climate week.How likely is Obama to do that?  As the Magic 8-Ball might say, "Reply hazy; try again."

Candidate Obama made strong climate action a central plank of his election platform.  President Obama has taken some pragmatic steps to make good on those promises, such as naming a climate-savvy team to key environment- and energy-related posts.  Obama also backed the massive funding within the stimulus bill for home-weatherization programs, clean energy research and development, expansion of rail transit, and other on-the-ground moves toward a low-carbon energy economy.  And he spent a smidge of political capital to help get the House climate and energy bill passed in June.

On the international negotiating front, however, the Obama administration may be hamstrung by sluggish Senate progress on passing climate legislation.  Senate leaders keep pushing back the timetable for action on a bill, with Majority Leader Harry Reid suggesting last week that it could be bumped all the way to next year.  Republicans are almost universally opposed to a cap-and-trade system for cutting greenhouse-gas emissions, and many moderate Democrats aren't enthusiastic about cap-and-trade either.

If the Senate doesn’t pass a climate bill by early December, U.S. influence in Copenhagen may well be diminished, though if the EPA takes action to regulate greenhouse gases with its existing authority, that could give the Obama administration something to take the table.

Meanwhile, the administration is working toward a bilateral climate agreement, which could circumvent the Kyoto treaty framework.  Where the world's two greatest greenhouse-gas polluters lead, the rest of the world will probably have to follow, no matter how strong or weak the results may be.

Climate activists are not going to let this week's gatherings of nations pass without a demonstration -- or even several thousand demonstrations, all around the world -- to show global public demand for a strong international climate treaty.  So there's a heavy schedule of (hoped-for) flash mobs, protests, call-to-arms film screenings, and other events in both New York City and Pittsburgh.

Through its Voices Project, the international aid group Oxfam and allies are helping a number of non-mainstream-media reporters and bloggers (including this reporter-blogger) to attend the Climate Summit; get face time with big names in climate policy, politics, and activism; and cover the G20 from a perspective that puts global warming front and center, instead of off to the side of the recession or global trade policy.

So, let's set the scene:  Coming into this week's meetings, the U.S. and 16 other of the world's largest emitters have already made a commitment (at July's Major Economies Forum in Italy) to hold global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.  They also reiterated a goal from last year of “achieving at least a 50 percent reduction in global emissions by 2050,” with industrialized nations slashing their greenhouse-gas pollution by 80 percent.  But as of yet, the 17 nations have made no formal plan for how to get to any of these milestones.

Will this week's events help break through the logjam?  Stay tuned as we find out.

Related Links:

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The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

I was fully prepared to hate this op-ed from T. Boone Pickens and Ted Turner, mainly because Pickens is kind of shady and I'm generally sick of rich old establishment white guys telling us how to transform our energy systems. However! It turned out to be pretty good -- far better than what you normally see on the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

The one sticking point for greens will be the heavy focus on natural gas, a vexed topic that's more and more central to climate policy conversations.

The politics of natural gas are extremely interesting. In a nutshell, the interests of coal utilities and natural gas executives are at odds. To the extent carbon is penalized and coal is phased out, natural gas wins.

Coal has dominated the development of ACES so far, securing tons of free permits and handouts, while natural gas has stood by, quiescent. Ex-senator Tim Wirth addressed a group of natural gas utility execs recently and told them to get off their asses and start lobbying for a stronger climate bill. They seem to be moving in that direction, trying to rally behind some concerted Senate lobbying.

Here, the American Gas Association's Roger Cooper puts a good face on natgas's presence in ACES:

I have no idea how it's going behind the scenes, but at the very least natural gas is a lot more sexy these days. It was the subject of a high-profile Senate hearing recently. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has done everything but carry T. Boone around on a perfumed litter to spread his natural gas evangelism. (Says Reid, "I've been converted. I now belong to the Pickens church." Yeah, I puked in my mouth a little too.)

Randy Udall has argued passionately on behalf of natural gas as a bridge climate solution. So has Robert Kennedy Jr. So has John Podesta.

The question for enviros: Is the enemy of our enemy our friend? Is it worthwhile to ally with the natgas industry to reduce the influence of coal and strengthen the climate bill?

To answer these questions, we need to look at the substantive roles being envisioned for natural gas. Pickens and Turner propose two.

Power plants

First:

Adopting a "cash-for-clunkers" program in the utility sector can save money and reduce emissions right away by retiring the oldest, least efficient and most polluting power plants in exchange for modern gas-powered plants. New coal plants should be required to combine natural gas with the coal they burn, resulting in cleaner emissions, and every power plant should meet strict carbon-emissions standards.

It's good that the oldest coal plants -- built in the 1950s and '60s, grandfathered under the Clean Air Act, and responsible for a substantial chunk of total U.S. emissions -- are back in the news. There was a great Washington Post piece on them (and how some might escape unscathed under ACES) this week. They also play a prominent role in Carl Pope's account of the Clean Air Act's original sin.

It's true, as Sean Casten and Joe Romm have pointed out, that rapidly shifting the nation's power dispatch from coal to gas would be the fastest way to reduce emissions in the short-term. Emissions from the average gas plant have plunged lately as new combined-cycle plants, which emit less than half the CO2 of the average coal plant, come online. (Meanwhile, average coal plant emissions are rising.)

As an added benefit, natural gas plants can be built more quickly than coal or nuke plants, smaller, and closer to load, enabling them to capture and use their waste heat. Natural gas can also be co-fired -- with coal to immediately reduce emissions from coal plants; with biomass, which (with sequestration) could produce carbon-neutral or even negative power; and perhaps most intriguingly, with solar thermal.

Natural gas really does seem like an important tool when it comes to short- and mid-term reductions in the electricity sector. Efficiency -- getting more power from less fuel -- should be the top and overwhelming priority, but natgas can certainly help at the margins.

Vehicles

The second proposal:

In the transportation sector, renewable energy and natural gas can also be deployed immediately. ... We can begin transitioning the nation's fleet of 6.5 million 18-wheelers that run regular routes. It would take just 20 refueling stations along a single highway to get trucks from one coast to the other. Centrally fueled urban business and government fleets also can quickly move to natural gas.

This I'm not so sure about. It's already a considerable walk-down from Pickens' original plan; he has now embraced electricity for light-duty vehicles. But still it ignores that natural gas is vastly more energy efficient burned to make electricity than it is burned in internal combustion engines. And even if compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles produce lower emissions per unit of fuel than gasoline vehicles, there's still an enormous energy penalty in gathering and compressing the fuel, which in the end yields a roughly equivalent environmental situation as gasoline. (Of course, Pickens doesn't care about the environmental situation -- he only cares where the fuel comes from -- but the rest of us should care.)

I get that we're not going to see electric buses or 16-wheelers any time soon, but all told, it seems ill-advised to build large new long-term infrastructure in the name of "transitioning." Better a strategy focused on moving freight to rail while researching advanced biofuels for heavy-duty vehicles; for personal vehicles, there are better batteries and transit-oriented development.

Of course, if U.S. policymakers took both the Turner/Pickens proposals to heart, it would represent a massive increase in demand for natural gas. Is there enough to satisfy that demand?

Supply

It's been conventional wisdom in progressive energy circles for a while now that domestic supplies of natural gas have plateaued and that the bulk of future supplies will come from overseas. But some new developments cast that into question. Craig A. Severance notes that just a couple months ago ...

... the nonprofit Potential Gas Committee industry group, assisted by the Colorado School of Mines, released the results of its 2008 assessment, indicating a total increase of U.S. natural gas resources of 39% since its last assessment, for 2006. The report notes the new natural gas resource estimate is the "highest resource evaluation in the Committee's 44-year history" -- indicating the U.S.has far more resources of natural gas than previously considered.

That's due to new discoveries and new technology that makes it easier to get at unconventional sources like shale. Others say the cost-effectiveness of getting at shale is speculative at best, and no one yet knows how much it will cost. We should have a much better idea of what's available in two or three years.

Of course if domestic supplies don't pan out, we can always revert to foreign sources in the short-term. Severance points out that "liquid natural gas (LNG) imports are being sold at incredibly low prices. With a glut of LNG terminal and tanker capacity, foreign producers now have the LNG loaded and ready to sell, and often are merely trying to cover their marginal costs of operation."

Ultimately, the signs seem to point to plentiful supply and, at least in the short-term, fairly low prices.

Still, what about the environmental consequences of embracing a fossil fuel?

Oh, right, the environment

Many long-time enviros want nothing to do with natural gas. There's worry that natural gas drilling endangers water supplies, in part thanks to the so-called Halliburton Loophole in the Safe Water Drinking Act, which exempts a technique called hydraulic fracturing from the law's provisions. It's the subject of lawsuits in Pennsylvania and protests in Texas right now. New York City has demanded a ban on natural gas drilling near upstate reservoirs, for fear of drinking water contamination. Legislation has been introduced to bring fracturing under federal rules.

As Udall himself admits:

The gas industry has not been gentle on Western landscapes -- but climate change could be worse. So pick your poison. To displace coal with gas, we'd need to complete 30,000 to 40,000 new wells a year for decades to come.

Vastly expanded natural gas drilling would no doubt create more ecological sacrifice zones populated by the poor and powerless. After sitting through sessions on mountaintop removal and New Orleans at a recent conference, I've lost my taste for that kind of "poison."

And of course, insofar as the domestic motherload doesn't pan out, we'll end up importing vast quantities of LNG, with all the vexing environmental issues that raises.

Non-conclusion

This is a lot of words to read for no conclusion, I know, but I'm torn. In a perfect world, we'd be committed to reducing the use of all fossil fuels as rapidly as possible, through efficiency and rapid buildout of renewables. Alternatively, one can envision a U.S. policy whereby natural gas is extracted carefully and used judiciously to carry the U.S. on a slightly slower transition to clean energy.

But as we have surely learned by now, politics is not a precise instrument. Sleep with dogs, wake with fleas. Sometimes you've got the bull and sometimes the bull's got you. Grab a tiger by the tail ... etc. If enviros ally with the natural gas industry, it's hard to know how much they'd ultimately be able to shape the result. Then again, it's not like there are lots of other powerful allies in the fight against coal just waiting in the wings, and it sure would be nice to get a better climate bill in the Senate ...

'Tis vexing. What do y'all think?

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Four moderate Democratic senators -- all considered swing votes on climate legislation -- want a climate bill put off until next year. They say Congress should focus on passing health-care legislation.

“The problem of doing both of them together is that it becomes too big of a lift,” Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) told Bloomberg.

Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) are also calling for a delay on climate action. While they are amenable to moving ahead with the energy bill that passed out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in June, they are less enthusiastic about passing a bill that would cap carbon dioxide emissions.

"We should separate the energy bill from the climate bill," said Conrad, adding that the energy portion "needs to be done as soon as we can get it done."

"I see the cap-and-trade being a real problem," said Lincoln.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) does not want to move the climate and energy legislation separately. He has said he plans to combine the energy bill with a cap-and-trade measure that would come from the Environment and Public Works Committee. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of that committee, has said she will introduce her climate bill after the August recess and have it approved by her committee by Sept. 28, the deadline Reid set for committee work on a climate bill.

"I don’t think we are going to take to the Senate floor a bill stripped of climate provisions," Reid said at an energy summit in Las Vegas last week.

But chances for Senate action on climate this fall are growing dimmer. The health-care debate was pushed off until after Labor Day, when Congress returns from its August recess, and it's expected to consume much of September and October. Many senators who are playing key roles with health-care legislation are also important to the climate debate, including Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who has said his committee should write the portion of a climate bill that allocates pollution permits. It's highly unlikely his committee would start work on that until after its work on health care is completed.

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A group of 10 Democrats from industrial and coal-dependent states sent a letter to President Obama on Thursday informing him that they will not support a climate and energy bill that puts American businesses on an uneven playing field.

"Climate change is a reality and the world cannot afford inaction. However, we must not engage in a self-defeating effort that displaces greenhouse gas emissions rather than reducing them and displaces U.S. jobs rather than bolstering them," they wrote.

Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Debbie Stabenow (Mich.), Carl Levin (Mich.), Robert Casey (Penn.), Arlen Specter (Penn.), Robert Byrd (W.Va.), Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Russell Feingold (Wis.), and Al Franken (Minn.) signed the letter. All 10 represent states that are coal-dependent and have a significant manufacturing base. Each is seen as a potential swing vote on the climate bill, and three (Bayh, Feingold, and Specter) are up for reelection in 2010 (though only Specter is seen as facing a tough political fight).

Five of the signers -- Bayh, Brown, Levin, Rockefeller, and Stabenow -- signed a letter last year saying they would have voted against the Lieberman-Warner climate bill had it been brought to a final vote at the time, and many of the 10 hail from states represented by some of the 44 House Democrats who voted against the Waxman-Markey bill in June.

Placing limits on domestic emissions will increase the costs of energy-intensive industries like cement, steel, paper, and aluminum, the senators write, and will push jobs in those industries to countries that do not have limits on emissions. They ask the administration to work with Congress to "ensure that climate change legislation does not produce an international race to the bottom" as more jobs are exported to countries with lower costs.

A climate bill should "include provisions to maintain a level playing field for American manufacturing," the senators write. "[I]t is essential that any clean energy legislation not only address the crisis of climate change, but include strong provisions to ensure the strength and viability of domestic manufacturing."

The authors call for transition assistance in the form of energy cost rebates for energy-intensive and trade-exposed industries, and policies and funding to support the research and development of new energy technologies. They also urge the Obama administration to negotiate a strong international agreement for emissions reductions in Copenhagen in December, including programs that "measure, monitor, verify, and hold countries accountable for emissions reductions."

The biggest flashpoint issue raised in the letter deals with trade. They authors encourage the president to support the inclusion of a border-adjustment policy in the climate bill, which would be a tariff on goods imported into the U.S. from countries that don't have binding emissions targets. Such a measure will be "critical to ensuring that climate change legislation will be trade neutral and environmentally effective," they write.

But this is likely to be an issue for the White House, which has already balked at some of the trade-protection elements included in the House bill. The Waxman-Markey proposal would give the president the power to attach special levies on goods from countries that are not abiding by an international agreement. Shortly after passage, Obama criticized the bill's border adjustment measures as being too "protectionist." "I think there may be other ways of doing it than with a tariff approach," said the president.

The letter was sent just before senators return to their districts for the five-week August recess. They are leaving with two of the president's major policy initiatives -- climate and health care -- unresolved, to be taken up again when Congress resumes.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters on Thursday that she intends to have legislation ready to introduce after the Senate reconvenes on Sept. 7, with hearings and briefings to follow. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has asked the various committees with jurisdiction over climate and energy policy to complete their work on a bill by Sept. 28. Boxer said she remains confident that her panel can approve a bill by that deadline.

Another major factor will be whether other committees choose to write components of the bill. Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has said he would like his committee to author the portion dealing with allowance distribution, and his committee held its first hearing on the subject earlier this week. Other committees, like Agriculture, may also want to craft relevant portions of the bill. Boxer said that her committee's bill would be comprehensive and that she will leave it to Reid to incorporate the work of other committees.

"I welcome all the committees to write whatever parts of the bill they feel they have jurisdiction over," said Boxer. "I am happy to see all the committees getting involved. And then Harry Reid is going to take all the bills."

Thursday was the last day of hearings before the congressional break, but there will surely be updates on how senators are positioning themselves in the weeks to come.  Watch our series on swing-vote senators to find out more.

Below is the text of the letter sent by the 10 senators today:

Related Links:

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In the weeks since the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, it's become clear that the bill was approved only because of some serious arm-twisting by Democratic leaders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) personally badgered wavering Democrats, even going so far as to pull one representative out of rehab so he could vote for the bill. Even with serious coercion from leadership, the House bill scraped by, with a vote of 219 to 212.

It doesn't look likely that we'll see the same hard-nosed approach in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has been downplaying the majority's ability to push through their agenda and even admitting that he's "not very good at twisting arms." The two leaders' approaches are a world apart.

Let's look at Pelosi first. The Hill has a fantastic account of just how serious Pelosi was about getting the bill passed:

And here's Politico's account of how Pelosi targeted New Jersey Rep. Rush Holt:

Reid seems far less willing than his House counterpart to play hardball to get a climate and energy bill passed.  Here he is in The New York Times discussing the Democrats' 60-vote supermajority and why it won't guarantee that the Dems' agenda passes this year:

And this, from a recent Congressional Quarterly profile:

Senate leaders have postponed debate of a climate bill until September, in order to buy more time to persuade apprehensive Democrats. But when the bill comes up, will Reid actually crack the whip?

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What to make of the new climate poll

Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets

John McCain’s troubles are the world’s troubles

It looks like President Obama, the horse whisperer of American politics, is finally going to weigh neigh in to get the mudders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee galloping to the finish line.

For people who haven’t been paying close attention, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) keeps dropping bigger and bigger hints that President Obama is not going to get a climate bill on his desk this year (Reid: Senate to wait for House cap-and-trade bill, effectively delaying final bill until 2010. Here’s why that should be good news).

Reid was asked Friday what issue was his biggest concern from now until the 2010 elections. Greenwire (subs. req’d) reported his answer:

Global warming. … Health care is easier than this global warming stuff.

The bigger question now is — Can the House even pass its big energy and climate bill before the August break? There are two big reasons why that is no more than a 50-50 proposition right now — and one big reason why a final climate bill is all but inevitable. Let’s start with the first two reasons:

Greenwire reports that there is not much evidence Waxman-Markey has got the votes to make it out of the subcommittee yet.

“I think it’s a real open question, don’t you?” Rep. Jim Matheson (D-Utah) told reporters yesterday when asked about Democrats’ plans to mark up a bill in the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee….

Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, the committee’s Democratic leaders, have pledged to finish their work on the legislation before the Memorial Day recess. Originally, Markey planned to hold a subcommittee markup this week, but he postponed that schedule to continue negotiations in search of the necessary votes.

… about a dozen moderate Democrats are still questioning the size and scope of a 648-page draft of the Waxman-Markey legislation. Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) told reporters earlier this week that he wanted Democratic committee leaders to schedule another hearing on the bill once they fill in a blank section from the draft that explains how to distribute emission credits among industries.Matheson said he is doubtful Democratic leaders can finish the legislation this month. “We’ve heard about Memorial Day,” he said. “I’ve always thought that was rather aggressive. This is a complicated bill. I think what’s going on now sort of validates that.”

Rep. Charles Gonzales (D-Texas), another swing-vote lawmaker on the subcommittee, credited Waxman and Markey for not pressing forward on a subcommittee vote before the time is right.

“I think the chairman just has to work on something that has a chance of passing,” Gonzales said. “I don’t think you can afford a false start. You have to have some measure of success here, and I think a lot of us are willing to move in that direction, recognizing the need of the legislation. But there has to be some movement.”

Another delay would not upset the Environmental Defense Fund. “It’s more important to have a very strong, acceptable agreement,” said Tony Kreindler, the group’s spokesman.

Again, if the President and the congressional leadership take the extra time to develop a political and messaging strategy, then delay is good, as I’ve argued many times (see “Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010“).

The reason why a final bill is inevitable is that it is a top priority of president Obama and he is going to start using his political muscle, it appears, soon, rather than later. E&E News (subs. req’d) reports this morning.

President Obama will meet tomorrow at the White House with House Democrats who are struggling to reach consensus on a major energy and global warming bill.

A White House aide said the meeting between Obama and Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats is expected to cover a wide range of issues on the panel’s plate, including health care reform and the proposal to set a first-ever mandatory cap on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions….

“I think what he’s going to do is say, ‘Please, don’t vote no. Let’s see what we can work out,’” said Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), who will also visit today with Obama during a White House event to celebrate Cinco de Mayo — a day earlier than the actual holiday….

Some environmentalists and liberal committee members last week began clamoring for Obama to take a more public stance on global warming out of concern the Democratic-led Congress could stumble on an issue they struggled to get addressed for eight years during the Bush administration.

“I hope we’ll hear more from him on this topic,” Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) said Thursday. “I think now would be a very good time.”

“I think right now Waxman is negotiating from a position that he doesn’t have leadership from Obama,” added Phil Radford, executive director of Greenpeace USA. “Right now, Obama can provide that. The question is: will he?”

White House officials last week insisted that Obama had been speaking forcefully on the climate issue, including an Earth Day speech where he cited Waxman’s work on a draft bill that lined up generally with the administration’s goals on global warming. “My hope is that this will be the vehicle through which we put this policy in effect,” Obama said during a visit to a wind turbine manufacturing plant in Newton, Iowa.

Obama’s top political and energy advisers, David Axelrod and Carol Browner, also spoke last week with key House and Senate committee members working on the cap-and-trade bill. The presentation was “just to map out an effective strategy to communicate to the American people why it is absolutely imperative that we need to address global warming,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who attended the meeting….

As they struggle to find the votes, rumors are flying about what Democratic leaders may need to do if they want to pass the legislation. One idea floating around Capitol Hill would see the climate bill bypassing Markey’s subcommittee and going straight to the full House Energy and Commerce Committee. But this is not a favorite option for either side of the aisle.

“I think they have to start it at subcommittee,” said Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Joe Barton (R-Texas). “To his credit, Ed Markey has had a good series of hearings. He deserves the right to try to mark up a bill in his subcommittee.”

Committee Democrats are also clamoring to see more details on the legislation. Green, for example, has said he wants another hearing on the bill once Waxman and Markey complete the provisions on how to distribute valuable emission credits among industry. Several lawmakers have said they will not commit one way or another with their vote until they can review that key section of the bill….

Meanwhile, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said yesterday he believes a climate bill can pass this year.

“What can we do this year? I want to see a bipartisan bill on health care. I want to us attack this issue of global warming and climate change, and to make sure that America is moving toward energy independence, green jobs in this new economy. Those are things we can accomplish,” Durbin said on Fox News Sunday.

Yes, long shots come in on the race track. In politics … not so much.

Bottom line: Notwithstanding Durbin’s comment, a bill will be on the President’s desk in 12 or so months.

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Remember how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) last week opened the door to the possibility of using cap-and-trade revenues to fund a new health-care system? He's now sounding less enthused about the idea, saying he has "no big plot" to pay for health care with cap-and-trade.

Meanwhile, it's become clear that Congress will have to pass climate legislation separately from the budget -- and that means 60 votes will be needed in the Senate.

Both the House and Senate approved budget resolutions on Thursday, versions of President Obama's budget plan. But while Obama included a cap-and-trade plan in his budget, the House and Senate resolutions don't (and the Senate's in fact specifically bars it). 

Still, enviros are cheering the fact that Congress' budget resolutions contain at least the basic framework to allow for climate and energy legislation later this year, including a reserve fund for energy projects.

"With investments that will help generate millions of jobs and protect our land, air, and water, this is one of the most environmentally responsible and economically stimulating budgets in American history," said Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters. "It builds an irresistible momentum towards a new era of clean energy with more jobs, greater security, and a cleaner planet."

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Congressional leaders want to combine energy and climate provisions into one big bill this year, rather than moving a few smaller bills on the issues.

But while some on Capitol Hill are cheering this as a way to expedite the process, others are skeptical about the chances of passing one giant bill in 2009, and worry that the strategy might slow progress on clean-energy measures that would be an easier sell without a controversial climate program.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on March 3 that she wants "an energy bill that goes farther" and includes a greenhouse-gas cap-and-trade program and improvements to the electricity grid. "I think having it as one bill shows the integrity, the oneness of it all, how it all relates to each other," she said.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) initially announced that he intended to move three separate pieces of legislation -- one on renewables and efficiency, one on electricity transmission, and one to cap greenhouse-gas emissions. But on March 5 he changed his tune, signaling that he will look to move a single package that includes all three measures. He estimated that the bill will be ready to go by the end of the summer.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, is laying the groundwork for regulating greenhouse gases, which ups the pressure on Congress to pass climate legislation this year rather than let the executive branch take the lead.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is working with ranking committee member Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) on an energy bill that's likely to include his renewable electricity standard (RES) proposal and efficiency measures. Though an RES bill that Bingaman proposed in 2007 failed, he seems confident that his new measure will win approval this year.

Senate leaders are also optimistic that they can pass legislation to upgrade the electricity grid and make it easier to transmit power -- particularly renewably produced power -- around the country to where it's needed. Reid is sponsoring a bill that would give the federal government greater authority in siting electrical transmission lines, and Bingaman is also sponsoring a transmission measure. (Reid's has met with some early resistance.)

But Bingaman, whose committee has jurisdiction on these issues, doesn't think the energy provisions would pass if they were linked to a measure to cap greenhouse-gas emissions.

"My view has been that we have reasonable consensus on quite a few things we can do to meet our energy challenge," Bingaman told reporters on March 5. "I think that it's worthwhile to get that done separate from a cap-and-trade system. I'd hate to see that held hostage while we wait to pass cap-and-trade." He added that cap-and-trade is "not ready for prime time."

Plenty of other senators have qualms about cap-and-trade too, and that will make it considerably more difficult to get a climate bill passed in the Senate than in the House. Last year's Climate Security Act in the Senate didn't get enough votes to cut off debate and move forward. Democrats currently have 58 seats in the chamber, but they're far from unified on climate and energy issues. Ten Democratic senators sent a letter to leadership last year explaining why they would not have voted in favor of final passage of the Climate Security Act, and as many 16 of them are already voicing concerns about an as-yet-nonexistent new climate bill.

A handful of Republican senators will also be needed to get a bill passed, yet opposition to climate legislation is mounting even among those who have in the past said they'd be willing to support a cap-and-trade plan. Last week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who voted to move forward on last year's bill, bashed the climate components included in President Obama's budget proposal. Also last week, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters, "I'm open, as are several Republicans, to cap-and-trade, but it's getting increasingly difficult to think about it in the middle of a recession."

On the House side, both Pelosi and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, say they plan to have a bill passed out of committee by Memorial Day, and approved by the full chamber before the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen in December. "I know that we can get this job done," said Pelosi.

A Pelosi aide told Grist that the leadership believes integrating energy and climate components into one bill might actually help it garner more support in the House, with the energy and grid elements providing incentive for more representatives -- specifically Republicans -- to vote for it. "Our goal here is to make this a bipartisan process here in the House, so that we have as much buy-in as possible," said the aide.

Eben Burnham-Snyder, a spokesperson for Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, said that including an RES and efficiency standards in the climate bill would help meet the ultimate goal of fighting global warming. "The important part is that in the end we have the most effective bill possible that will cut emissions in the most aggressive manner and create jobs," said Burnham-Snyder.

Markey has already introduced legislation to establish an RES and promote efficiency. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) plans to introduce a bill on transmission in the next few weeks, and Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) said last week that he plans to reintroduce his 2008 bill to fund carbon-capture-and-sequestration technology for coal-fired power plants.

David Hawkins, director of the climate center at the Natural Resources Defense Council, favors moving a combined bill, noting that it puts the concepts of an RES and efficiency into the context of the greater goal -- moving away from reliance on carbon-based fuel sources. "These are two sides of the same coin," he said. "We've had a number of years of experiments with moving energy legislation without considering climate, and we wind up doing things where we're spending taxpayer dollars on dirty energy sources and on clean energy sources."

But Frank Maisano, who represents the energy industry at the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, thinks "smashing it together" would be a risky move. "There are a lot of complexities with putting everything together like that," he said. "This is a difficult bill. Congress has to do its homework to get it done right."

Dan Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, points out that the way the legislation is packaged is less important than whether or not Congress as a whole is prepared to address the problem of climate change.

"The real question is whether the political urgency is going to catch up with the scientific urgency," said Weiss. While Reid, Pelosi, Waxman, and other congressional leaders have been vocal about the need to move climate legislation as soon as possible, said Weiss, "It's unclear if that urgency is shared by enough other people in either body."

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