Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is the chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee and coauthor of the ACES bill passed by the House in June. Naturally, political observers are curious about his thoughts on the fight to pass climate/energy legislation this year, but in media interviews he tends to be careful, measured, and fairly abstract. He doesn't do his work in public.

It turns out, however, that Waxman has offered a fairly clear guide to his thinking, and even told us where to find it: it's in chapter five of his new book, The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works. (The book is coauthored with writer Josh Green, who wrote a stellar piece on clean energy last month for The Atlantic.)

A brief aside about the book: it's fantastic, less the primer promised by the title than a series of first-person yarns containing startling measures of suspense, drama, and pathos. It sounds strange to say about a book mostly composed of congressional investigations and hearings, but it's a real page-turner. And there are victories. No matter your skepticism about government, you will be inspired.

The point of this post isn't to review the book, though. For that see the The Washington Post and the L.A. Times. This is about chapter five, the battle(s) over the Clean Air Act.

Defense

The CAA was originally passed in 1970 and strengthened in 1977, but when Reagan rolled into D.C. in 1980, killing it was one of his top priorities. He had enormous popularity among the public, universal backing from industry, broad support in Congress, and a willing co-conspirator in Energy and Commerce chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.), who then as now represented the auto industry. It was grim.

Waxman, who chaired the environment subcommittee, launched what was effectively a guerilla campaign. To begin with, he used every procedural trick and delay in the book, trying to slow the juggernaut. When the bill went before the full committee, Waxman offered amendment after amendment seeking fissures in the opposing coalition. As Waxman says, "our strategy was to muster all our strength to deny one industry its favors, and in doing so, set off a chain reaction -- if one industry pulled out, others might waver, too, eventually turning the coalition members against one another." And that's what happened. The crucial turning point was a toxic air amendment that effectively soured the deal for the chemical industry. It passed by one, shaky, uncertain vote. With that, Reagan's overwhelmingly favored effort to gut the CAA died.

(Suffice to say, this chapter is illuminating on the subject of why Dingell and Waxman can't stand each other, and why Waxman felt the need to effectively pull a coup on the committee last year.)

Offense

For the rest of the decade, Waxman methodically built a coalition to strengthen the CAA and address, among other problems, acid rain. Many behind-closed-doors meetings with Midwest Democrats ensued, along with field hearings highlighting the economic benefits of the policy. His effort was defeated in 1983, and again in 1984. Later in 1984 came the devastating explosion at the Bhopal pesticide plant in India, which captured public attention; Waxman jumped on the opportunity to hold a field hearing at a similar plant making similar chemicals (and with similarly few safeguards) in the U.S.

In 1985, yet another ambitious attempt ended up stripped almost bare, leaving only the Toxic Release Inventory, which merely required polluters to disclose their emissions. As it happens, TRI galvanized the debate in a way no one expected. When members of the public found out exactly how much pollution they were breathing, and where it came from, and how their cities compared to other cities, their appetite for pollution control increased markedly.

What Waxman calls the "turning point" was a somewhat obscure amendment fight in 1987, over compliance deadlines. The day before the vote, Dingell and Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.) publicly predicted an easy defeat of the Waxman/Conte amendment. The following day it passed with a 95 vote margin, an unexpected, resounding win for the growing coalition behind clean air.

By 1989, with Bush I (the self-styled "environmental president") in office and Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) replacing Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) as Senate majority leader, new regulations seemed inevitable; industry was divided and infighting, scrabbling for deals. Waxman and his allies went straight after Dingell, pushing tougher tailpipe standards, figuring if they got that Dingell would roll on other industries. The two key votes turned out to be Republican Tom Tauke (Iowa), who got some protection for tractors, and conservative Dem Ralph Hall (Texas), who got sheer, cussed persuasion.

Victory

Dingell cracked and made a deal. The unexpected alliance of Waxman and Dingell led to more deals, momentum, some marathon negotiations over acid rain, and ultimately a bill through the House.

What happened next is interesting indeed:

The Bush administration made a key strategic miscalculation that wound up strengthening the law considerably in the final stages of negotiation. Bush officials played an active role in negotiating the Senate bill, but not its House counterpart. Assuming that a weaker bill would emerge from the House, White House negotiators had insisted that the Senate agreement bind the subsequent House-Senate conference, as Dingell and I had agreed to do. By freeing senators to vote as they wished, the administration expected that they would combine the weakest elements of both bills in to the final legislation. Instead, with an election looming, they supported the strongest provisions in both bills, producing a law that was much better than either the House or Senate drafts had been.

Thus: the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990. Here's what happened next:

Five years after its passage, more than half the U.S. cities that exceeded urban smog standards had come into compliance. Production of ozone-depleting chemicals had dropped by more than 90 percent. Power plant emissions that cause acid rain fell to half their 1980 levels, and at a fraction of the cost industry had predicted. ... When fully implemented, the law will prevent tens of thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, and millions of lost workdays each year.

That strikes me as well worth a decade of fighting.

What can we learn from this tale that's germane to the fight over climate legislation? I'll address that in a future post, but please, share your own interpretations in comments.

Related Links:

Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets

John McCain’s troubles are the world’s troubles

George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

If you wanted to get progressives more excited about the clean energy and climate protection bill that passed the House last week, you might be inclined to point to Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins HuffPost piece on the $1 billion in green jobs funding that was added at the last minute, including "[l]ocal access to quality jobs, through the creation of a green-construction, careers-demonstration program." Or the Environmental Capital post about the new green building codes: "The bill mandates that upon passage, all states move to adopt standards for residential and commercial structures that are at least 30 percent better than two widely accepted energy codes. The requirements get more strict over time, and states would get lots of money from the federal government to enforce them."

But I am happiest today with the NY Times report reviewing all the unpleasant sausage-making that went into crafting a compromise between green Dems and carbon-friendly Dems.

Why? Because in the aftermath of the House vote, right-leaning Senate Dems and right-wing Republicans acted as if Reps. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey hadn't spent the last three months painstakingly piecing a compromise with Dems sympathetic to coal companies, power companies and agribusiness.

These Senators are the new global warming deniers. Not denying the climate crisis is happening, but denying the climate bill compromises that just happened.

Sen. Claire McCaskil complained on Twitter, "I hope we can fix cap and trade so it doesn't unfairly punish businesses and families in coal dependent states like Missouri." Sen. Robert Byrd released a critical statement, "I cannot support the House bill in its present form. I continue to believe that clean coal can be a 'green' energy,"

Sen. Lindsey Graham contradicted himself on Meet The Press as he complained both that 44 Democrats voted against the bill, and the bill was not a bipartisan compromise -- when in fact Republican votes were needed to pass the bill because so many Democrats defected. Graham also made the odd comment that we need to "join forces with energy independence groups and climate change groups to get a bipartisan bill." Of course, that's exactly what did happen. The biggest outside influence behind the bill was the business-enviro coalition US Climate Action Partnership. But Graham knows that the traditional media generally hasn't bothered to explain what happened to get the bill passed, allowing him to distort reality unfettered.

The West Virginia blog Coal Tattoo sought to remind Sen. Byrd that the United Mine Workers concluded "the amount of money dedicated to coal in this bill is remarkable, and the future of coal will be intact." I sought to the use the power of Twitter to let Sen. McCaskill know about the coal compromises after she told her followers she plans to do her "homework" on energy. No new responses from either yet.

If the perception is created that the House bill is not a compromise bill, all the political pressure will be on weakening the bill further, which would risk shattering the tenuous coalition that got the bill passed in the first place.

If we want to have any hope of holding the line, let alone trying to strengthen the bill, in the Senate, it must be known far and wide that House leaders have done the hard work. They have taken the risks and cut the deals.

If fossil fuel-friendly Senators want to criticize the substance of those deals, fine. Do so and have a public debate about it. Certainly environmental groups want to.

But to pretend those deals don't exist is flat dishonesty. And if we let it stand, the Senate process will be even uglier than the House.

Originally posted at OurFuture.org

Related Links:

On “climategate”

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

There's one interesting aspect of the Waxman-Markey vote worth highlighting in its own post. Ron Brownstein's analysis contains this intriguing information:

The sponsors also maintained substantial support for the legislation even in the Midwestern states expected to generate the most opposition because of their heavy reliance on coal for electricity. Overall 48 of the 60 Democrats from the Midwest and the Plains states supported the bill, including 10 of 12 in Illinois, 8 of 10 in Ohio, and all eight in Michigan. ...

Still, the most widespread Democratic defections came from Southern states, most of which backed McCain over Obama last November. Eighteen of the 44 Democratic "no" votes came from the 11 states of the Old Confederacy; 40 Southern Democrats supported the bill. That means nearly a third of Southern Democrats opposed the bill, a higher defection rate than in the Midwest and Plains (20 percent), much less the Northeast (8 percent) and the Pacific West (just under 7 percent).

What you see here is the beginning of a dynamic I expect to accelerate in coming years: the divergence of the South (specifically coal-mining Appalachia) and the Midwest on energy politics. For a long while they've been hand-in-glove, the coal producers and the manufacturers who use their cheap, dirty power. But those manufacturing areas have been bleeding jobs for a long time now. Cheap power isn't doing them much good. They need new jobs. And where are those jobs going to come from? What other plausible area of expansion is there for American manufacturing? Clean energy, of course.

That's why you see Midwest Dems edging forward on this stuff. They're getting the jobs pitch. Their desperate constituents are getting the jobs pitch. This is one of the very few reasons I'm not despairing yet about the Senate vote. Right now Midwestern Dems like Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) are making concerned noises. But we saw how skillful negotiation and persuasion from Waxman and Pelosi brought most of their House counterparts around. Once Midwest Senators start hearing the same arguments -- from Obama among other people -- I predict they'll soften. (This is assuming a minimal standard of competence from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, so caveat emptor.)

The South, still in the grips of regulated monopoly coal utilities and generally eco-hostile culture, is a tougher nut to crack. But on this issue, like so many others, it's beginning to isolate itself. The South has blocked progress in the country for a long, long time, on a stunning array of issues, but it can't do so entirely alone. It needs allies, at least allies of convenience. And on energy, it's beginning to lose them. Soon it will be alone on the sinking coal ship.

Does it need to be, though? Are the coal utilities right that "clean coal" is the only alternative for the region? Pretend for a moment that it isn't about the intricate historical web of personal and financial relationships among legislators, regulators, and regulated utilities in such states. Pretend that coal utilities hadn't long since abandoned innovation in favor of regulator management. Pretend this were a substantive determination: do Southern states have the resources they need to reduce emissions in the short term and maintain thriving economies?

A flurry of new analysis from WRI and other researchers answers in the affirmative:

Our regional assessment, drawing on recent government and regional studies, suggests sufficient renewable energy resources to meet as much as 30 percent of the Southeast’s electric power needs within the next 15 years. ... With prompt policy action, energy efficiency improvements could reduce electricity use more than 10 percent by 2015 and 20 percent by 2025.

In other words, the South doesn't have to be trapped in the past. Its leaders just seem to like it that way.

Related Links:

Copenhagen, U.S.A. December 7

An Appalachian tale

Voters in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri support climate action

What does Friday's close Waxman-Markey vote in the House tell us? (The 219 yes votes represented exactly one more than the minimum necessary.)

In an excellent analysis (complete with interactive map), National Journal's Ron Brownstein notes:

Of the 49 House Democrats who represent districts that McCain carried last year, fully 29 voted against the measure. By contrast, just 15 of the 207 Democrats from districts that Obama carried last year voted against the bill. (Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings, whose district backed Obama, did not vote, meaning "Obama Democrats" ended up splitting 191-15.) Put another way, while 59 percent of the Democrats from districts that McCain carried voted no, just 7 percent of Democrats in Obama-majority districts opposed the White House on the vote.

Similarly, seven of the eight Republicans who supported the measure represent districts that backed Obama last November. (The list included Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois, who's considering a bid for the president's former Senate seat, and Mike Castle of Delaware, who may run for the seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden.)

The Hill covers Pelosi's full-court press to get the votes, which crucially involved persuading a small bloc of Republican moderates. A representative was pulled out of rehab; another delayed her resignation; several changed their minds in the final hour. Fascinating individual stories, like this:

Henry Cuellar (D-Texas). Obama tried, and failed to convince Cuellar. On Thursday, Pelosi approached Cuellar on the House floor as he was telling a colleague about how he was going to reject the bill. The Speaker tapped him on the shoulder.

“Henry,” she interrupted. “Can I talk to you about your vote?”

Cuellar, who sits on the Agriculture Committee, later said he was still leaning no. He waited late in the roll call on Friday evening to register his position, voting yes.

To Bill Scher, the narrow vote is a bad sign -- Dems were looking to defect and the thing barely scraped by, even with eight Republicans votes. According to Stan Collender, it's a good sign -- many Dems were saved a risky vote:

The margin was narrow but isn't the big story. The ultimate political value for the White House is that it was able to get the bill adopted at all but still allow 44 Democrats to vote against it. Not asking Democrats to walk a political plank will pay huge dividends later this year and in the 2010 elections because those members who needed to vote against it were able to do so. And, of course, the White House didn't have to use up huge favors in the process.

Having voted against the administration's climate change bill on the record means that at least some of these House Democrats will be able to vote for what emerges from a House-Senate conference later in the year. Therefore, the chances of a climate bill being enacted this year is now much greater than it was 24 hours ago.

Ezra Klein is skeptical, as am I. It assumes that whatever comes out of conference is weakened and thus that no-voting Dems have plausible cover to switch to yes. That's a bit of a bank-shot road to political success; hard to see how its preferable simply to whipping up more votes.

One thing everyone agrees on: the Senate is a much, much tougher row to hoe.

Related Links:

Fourteen Democratic senators stick up for coal

House passes landmark health-care bill with one GOP vote

When will we stop paying the hidden fossil fuel tax?

The American Clean Energy and Security Act (aka the Waxman-Markey bill) narrowly passed in the House late Friday thanks to eight bold Republicans who hopped the fence. And one of them is Washington state's very own Dave Reichert of the 8th District (which includes Mercer Island, Bellevue, and surrounding areas).

Some 44 House Democrats, mostly from coal-producing and industrial states, broke party lines by voting "no" on the bill that promises renewable electricity standards, emissions caps, investments in energy technology, and more. That means those eight Republicans who gave a "yay" rather than a "nay" produced the simple majority vote (plus one bonus vote!) that catapulted ACES to the Senate floor.

Why did Reichert decide to break from the Republican pack and support the bill? He remained tight-lipped about the decision until the votes were counted, and then released this statement:

How did your representative vote? Here's the breakdown for Washington state:

Yay

Nay

Related Links:

What to make of the new climate poll

Bill McKibben says time is running out on climate delays

Carol Browner strongly backs bipartisan cap-and-trade bill

UPDATE:  My Salon piece, "One brief shining moment for clean energy" is up.  We do need to savor moments like these, since, as I note in that article, given modern conservative ideology, which is 100% anti-conservation, "the country can only contemplate serious environmental legislation when we have the unique constellation of a Democratic president and [large] Democratic majorities in both houses, an occurrence far rarer than a total eclipse of the sun."

Every journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step - including stopping human-caused global warming at "safe levels," as close as possible to 2°C.

This bill would complete America's transition to a clean energy economy, which was begun in the stimulus (see "EIA projects wind at 5% of U.S. electricity in 2012, all renewables at 14%, thanks to Obama stimulus!").  Within four decades, the vast majority of American's carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel consumption will be replaced by the technologies discussed here:  "An introduction to the core climate solutions."

This bill makes possible an international deal in Copenhagen this December - as well as a bilateral deal with China, hopefully sooner.  Had the bill failed, the chance of humanity avoiding catastrophic climate change would be all but eliminated.  As Nobelist Gore wrote earlier today, there was no "backup plan" to Waxman-Markey.   In this post, I will revise and extend the post I wrote after the bill passed the Energy and Commerce Committee (see "House committee approves landmark (bipartisan!) clean energy and climate bill - political realists rejoice, climate science realists demand more").

For climate-politics realists, the vote today is a staggering achievement.  Today was the first time the U.S. House of Representatives has ever voted on climate legislation.  This country hasn't enacted a major economy-wide clean air bill since the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990.  And that bill had a cap-and-trade system where 97% of the permits were given to polluters.  And it focused on direct, obvious, short-term health threats to Americans.  And that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, when the entire Republican establishment wasn't dead set against any government led effort to reduce pollution.

Yet Waxman-Markey did get 8 Republican votes, which is 8 more than the stimulus bill got!  This bill needed Republican votes, which will also be true in the Senate.  The closeness of the House vote - with 44 Dems voting No - makes clear that the really hard work is yet to come.

And for those who say this doesn't do enough - I agree 100%.  But then the original Clean Air Act didn't do enough.  And the 1987 Montréal protocol would not have stopped concentrations of ozone depleting substances from rising and thus would not have saved the ozone layer.  But it began a process and established a framework that, like the CAA, could be strengthened over time as the science warranted.  The painful reality of climate change is going to become increasingly obvious in the coming years, and strengthening is inevitable.

In the earlier post, I discussed the myriad forces lined up against serious climate action.  I won't repeat that here, but instead want to excerpt something that David Corn wrote for Mother Jones, which states the climate-politics realist position very well - a position you might not associate with Corn and MJ:

So should progressives back this not-a-full-loaf bill? Matt Yglesias offers this hard-headed guidance: follow the Waxman. Citing a recent Charles Homans profile of Waxman (and you can see a Waxman profile I did a few years ago), he writes:

There's simply nobody else in Congress whose record of progressive legislative accomplishments can hold a candle to Waxman's. When you draw intersecting curves of "what needs to be done" and "what can realistically be done," Waxman has time and again put himself at the intersection, and I think it involves a fair amount of hubris to think that you know better than him what the best feasible legislative outcome is.

I would add Representative Ed Markey to this equation. For decades, Markey has been a passionate champion of environmental and clean energy causes. A few months ago, he complained to me about Washington's inability to address the threat of climate change. Like Waxman, he gives a damn about this and truly wants to pass the toughest bill possible.

Enviros can decide for themselves how much compromise to accept. Ultimately, our political system may not at this time-even with President Barack Obama at the helm-be able to handle the full truth about climate change and act accordingly. But it's hard to second-guess Markey and Waxman. If they are cutting deals, they are doing what they reluctantly need to do, not what they want.

It will be a staggering achievement if, in 6 to 9 months, an energy and climate bill that looks something like Waxman-Markey is signed into law by President Obama.

From the perspective of political realism, though, it will be a great challenge just to stop this bill from being weakened as it winds itself through the House and especially the Senate.  Indeed, it should be strengthened.  That is the hard task ahead.

From the perspective of climate science realists, the bill has two flaws, one of which is very serious.  And I don't mean the allocations for big polluters.  I know many of my readers disagree, but I just don't think that the allocation undermines the goals of the bill at all, and in fact are a perfectly reasonable way of satisfying political needs while preventing windfalls for polluters and preserving prices (and update here).  See also Robert Stavins: "The appropriate characterization of the Waxman-Markey allocation is that more than 80% of the value of allowances go to consumers and public purposes, and less than 20% to private industry."

The first flaw is the 2 billion offsets that polluters can potentially use instead of their own emissions reductions.  I have previously explained why I am far less worried about domestic offsets (see here).  In a regulated market with a cap, many of the domestic offsets will represent real reductions of US greenhouse gas emissions, and the total supply of cheap domestic offsets will be limited.  I have also explained why I do not believe the international offsets threaten the overall integrity of the bill (see "Do the 2 billion offsets allowed in Waxman-Markey gut the emissions targets?").  The key point is that last year, the entire international offsets market utilized by the Europeans was 82 million tons with an average price of $25/ton (and about half of those tons were crappy, low-cost HFCs from China that won't be available by 2012).  If the U.S. comes into the international offsets market even in a modest way, the price will certainly be higher than that, especially if we work to improve offset quality, as the bill demands.  Still, I'd love the Senate to improve the bill by sunsetting the offsets.

The bottom line is that the vast amounts of moderate-cost near-term domestic emissions reductions strategies - energy efficiency, conservation, replacing coal power with natural gas-fired power, wind power, biomass cofiring, concentrated solar thermal power, recycled energy, geothermal, and hydro power (see "An introduction to the core climate solutions") - will be available at $15/ton or less (in quantity) in 2020 (see "Game changer, Part 2: Why unconventional natural gas makes the 2020 Waxman-Markey target so damn easy and cheap to meet").

And that brings us directly to the second and far graver flaw - the 2020 target is too weak (see here).  Given the lost 8 years of the Bush administration, it was inevitable that a bill which doesn't even impose a cap until 2012 could not have the same 2020 target (compared to 1990 levels) than the Europeans are considering.

That means we're going to build too much polluting crap in the next decade.  That means we'll have to go back and unbuild it at some point.  More expensive, sure, than doing it right the first time, but no more difficult than deploying the dozen or so accelerated stabilization wedges globally in three to four decades needed to beat 450 ppm.

For me, a two-term President Obama (together with the next three Congresses) cannot solve the global warming problem, but can create the conditions that allow the next couple of presidents to do what is needed.  Or he can be thwarted, making it all but impossible for future presidents.

The only hope for stabilizing at 350 to 450 ppm is a WWII-scale and WWII-style effort as I have said many times.  And that implies a level of desperation we don't have now (see " What are the near-term climate Pearl Harbors?").  When we have that desperation, probably in the 2020s, we'll want to already have:

This bill is crucial to achieving all of those vital goals.

Kudos to Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman and Ed Markey and President Obama - and a great many other progressive politicians and advocates - for making this historic moment happen.

Enjoy the weekend.  The really hard work - Senate passage - is next.

UPDATE: Statement from the Alliance for Climate Protection Chairman Al Gore on passage of the American Clean Energy Security (ACES) Act by the House of Representatives

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the Leadership of the House, and Chairmen Waxman and Markey have, through their leadership, secured an important bipartisan victory for the American people.

The American Clean Energy Security (ACES) Act is one of the most important pieces of legislation Congress will ever pass. This comprehensive legislation will make meaningful reductions in global warming pollution, spur investment in clean energy technology, create jobs and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

The next step is passage of this legislation by the Senate to help restore America's leadership in the world and begin, at long last, to put in place a truly global solution to the climate crisis.

We are at an extraordinary moment, with an historic opportunity to confront one of the world's most serious challenges. Our actions now will be remembered by this generation and all those to follow - in our own nation and others around the world.

Related Links:

Climate Hope: Inspiring 2009 Books for Clean Energy

Tom Friedman on “What They Really Believe”

Winning the clean energy race: a new strategy for American leadership

In the whipsawing environment that is the House of Representatives, the vote for Waxman-Markey is back on for this week, scheduled for Friday.  My sources put the odds of an actual vote at 70-30.

The updated American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) is here (a big PDF).   E&E News (subs. req'd) reports:

House Democratic leaders late last night released a revamped, 1,201-page energy and global warming bill, clearing the way for floor debate Friday even though it remains uncertain if they will have the votes to pass it.

The House bill posted on the Rules Committee Web site has grown from the 946-page version adopted last month in the Energy and Commerce Committee. Sources on and off Capitol Hill said the bulk of the changes largely reflect requests from the eight other committees that also had jurisdiction over the bill, including the Ways and Means Committee and Science and Technology Committee.

Sponsors expect to draft a manager's amendment later this week that reflects additional deals reached among lawmakers, according to several House Democratic aides.

Perhaps the biggest modification in the new version involves language sought by the nation's rural electric cooperatives that gives the country's smallest power utilities a free 0.5 percent slice of the cap-and-trade program's valuable emission allowances.

So for, nothing terribly shocking has been changed in the bill.  But more changes will be made:

Drew Hammill, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said last night in a statement that negotiations are expected to continue on the climate bill this week.

"There are some issues still under discussion, but we are confident we can resolve them by the time the bill goes to the floor on Friday," Hammill said. "The speaker, Leader [Steny] Hoyer and Chairmen Waxman and Peterson have all agreed on this approach for moving this historic climate change and clean energy jobs bill."

Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) has given members until Thursday morning to submit possible floor amendments to the climate bill....

As for the Agriculture Committee, Democrats appear to have satisfied one of Peterson's top concerns dealing with the free allowances to rural electric cooperatives.

Waxman has agreed to the 0.5 percent of allocations for small electric utilities that have under 4 million megawatts of capacity, as well as a cap on free allowances going to merchant coal generators and other power companies to ensure they do not make any windfall profits.

Glenn English, a former Oklahoma Democratic congressman who now runs the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, praised Peterson for his work on the House negotiations, adding: "We're not going to stand in the way of the passage of the bill."

Pelosi's aide did not say specifically which issues remains to be worked out. However, the bill text released last night does not appear to include further changes to the definitions of "renewable biomass" that applies to either the current national biofuels mandate, or the bill's proposed renewable electricity standard....

Also, the bill as posted does not restrict EPA's authority to weigh "indirect" emissions from land-use changes when calculating the carbon footprint of biofuels. The issue is important because under a 2007 expansion of the renewable fuels standard, biofuels must have, to varying degrees, lower lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels....

Even with the rural electric cooperatives' backing and other changes, it is still far from clear if Pelosi and Waxman have all the votes to pass the legislation. Several Democrats have raised red flags about voting for a bill on the floor that comes with near unanimous GOP opposition, as well as no promise of success in the Senate.

Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.), a co-chair of the fiscally conservative House Blue Dog Coalition, said last week that a number of the group's members would be reluctant to support a climate bill if they were given less than a week to review it.

"The coalition is just not going to be ready to vote on this next week, particularly if we don't get language until Monday," she told E&E last week. "Because many will insist that we have a number of days to review the language ourselves, to have back and forth with our constituencies and stakeholder groups, to understand how the system with a significant manager's amendment will work. Yes, absolutely, we need to chew on this awhile."

... Waxman last week predicted floor passage this week as Democrats begin to more aggressively court votes.

"We'd have to pin people down, go through a whip count and talk to people who have not indicated their support for the bill at this point," Waxman said. "But I think we would have the votes, yes."

If they bring the bill up, they'll have the votes.

Although I'm traveling this week, I am on the ground all Friday, so the revolution, such as it is, will be televised.

Related Links:

Winning the clean energy race: a new strategy for American leadership

Fourteen Democratic senators stick up for coal

House passes landmark health-care bill with one GOP vote

The idea for this Father's Day post came when I was putting my daughter to bed a few weeks ago, and she started to repeat, "Want tiny dog" - one of her favorite stuffed animals.  The room was dark, and so I asked, "Is tiny dog in the crib?"  to which she replied, "Not yet" or, rather, you have to imagine a certain sly lilt, "Not ye-et," which might be translated as, "You have to find him if you expect me to go to sleep."

As I'm crawling around the room looking to see if she's tossed him on the floor or if he somehow got under the furniture, she said, "Must be frustrating."  And so a post was born.

Since the floor debate on the Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy legislation is coming up (though probably not this week), let me, without further ado, offer

The Top 10 Ways the House GOP are like my Two-Year-Old daughter

10.  Core messaging is often infantile. It was, after all, on September 3, 2008 at 10:14 pm EST at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, that the entire GOP decided to make their central message a plea to the very youngest Americans - see "Drill baby, drill": The moment the Republic died.

9.  Similar messaging tactics.  GOP messaging guru Frank Luntz once said, "There's a simple rule: You say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and you say it again, and then again and again and again and again, and about the time that you're absolutely sick of saying it, is about the time that your target audience has heard it for the first time."  In my daughter's case, the target audience is very small, and, her message, some variant  "Today is Carousel day," gets heard the first time and the tenth.  For the GOP, the target audience is bigger, but the polling suggests that most people long ago understood they like drilling to the exclusion of pretty much everything else.

8.  Very ego-centric.  My daughter has become fond of saying of various things around the house, "Mine!  Mine!  It's mine!"  In the same vein, former House leader Gingrich is fond of saying, "I am not a citizen of the world!"

7.  Love nonsense phrases that amuse them, if no one else.  See House GOP leader Boehner on ABC: "The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical."

6.  Unable to accurately restate things they have just heard - and once they get it wrong, they just keep repeating the mistake. My daughter keeps calling the plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex figure "Steggy."  Similarly, the GOP keeps claiming there is an MIT analysis of Waxman-Markey that says the cost per household would be $3100 (see "MIT Professor tells GOP to stop ‘misrepresenting' his work and inflating the cost to families of cap-and-trade by a factor of 10" and then again three weeks later, MIT Professor says GOP, Weekly Standard "misrepresentation" of his April 2007 study to project costs for Waxman-Markey is "inappropriate," "silly" and "just wrong").

5.  Love to hear and/or sing the same song over and over again. In my daughter's case, that would be "Waltzing Matilda" (see "I just learned two shocking things").  In the GOP case, it is the "Cheney energy plan."

4.  Unable to understand or acknowledge the consequences of their actions. See House GOP pledge to fight all action on climate. "Why do conservatives hate your children?"

3.  Masters of delaying tactics (though, admittedly, not as successfully as their Senate colleagues).  See "House GOP puts forward 450 amendments to Waxman-Markey" and "Waxman's speed-reading clerk - hired to thwart GOP stalling tactics - gets 2 minutes of fame").

2.  Hate to change; can't do it by themselves.  ‘Nuff said.

1.  Favorite word is "no." For a while, my daughter went through a phase where her favorite word was "never" - pronounced, "Neveh!"  Then she went through the standard "no" phase.  Now her favorite word is "stop."  Same for House (and Senate) GOP, it would seem.

Of course, unlike the GOP, my daughter is adorable, eager to learn new things, and will grow out of her infantile messaging and worldview.

Happy Father's day to all the Dad's out there.

Related Links:

Voters in Ohio, Michigan and Missouri support climate action

Senate GOP embrace Inhofe’s boycott of Clean Energy Jobs Act in effort to thwart Copenhagen

Honey, I shrunk the GOP, Part 4

By a vote of 219-212, the U.S. House of Representatives on June 26 passed a landmark climate and energy bill—the American Clean Energy and Security Act, aka the Waxman-Markey bill.

Most Democrats voted for the bill—211 in all—but 44 Dems voted against. Almost all Republicans opposed the bill—168—but eight Republicans broke ranks to support the measure. Many reps sat on the fence until the last minute. We’ve bolded fence-sitters and reps who broke with their parties.  (If you’re not sure who your representative is, go here to find out.)

Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii)
Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.)
John Adler (D-N.J.)
Robert E. Andrews (D-N.J.)
Joe Baca (D-Calif.)
Brian Baird (D-Wash.)
Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.)
Melissa L. Bean (D-Ill.)
Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.)
Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.)
Howard Berman (D-Calif.)
Sanford D. Bishop, Jr. (D-Ga.)
Timothy Bishop (D-N.Y.)
Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.)
John A. Boccieri (D-Ohio)
Mary Bono Mack (R-Calif.)
Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa)
Rick Boucher (D-Va.)
Allen Boyd (D-Fla.)
Robert Brady (D-Penn.)
Bruce L. Braley (D-Iowa)
Corrine Brown (D-Fla.)
G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.)
Lois Capps (D-Calif.)
Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.)
Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.)
Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.)
Andre Carson (D-Ind.)
Michael N. Castle (R-Del.)
Kathy Castor (D-Fla.)
Ben Chandler (D-Ky.)
Yvette D. Clarke (D-N.Y.)
William Clay Jr (D-Mo.)
Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.)
James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.)
Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
Gerry Connolly (D-Va.)
John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)
Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.)
Joe Courtney (D-Conn.)
Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.)
Henry Cuellar (D-Texas)
Elijah Cummings (D-Md.)
Susan Davis (D-Calif.)
Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.)
Diana DeGette (D-Colo.)
William Delahunt (D-Mass.)
Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Mass.)
Norma D. Dicks (D-Wash)
John Dingell (D-Mich.)
Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas)
Mike Doyle (D-Pa.)
Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio)
Donna Edwards (D-Md.)
Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)
Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.)
Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.)
Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.)
Sam Farr (D-Calif.)
Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.)
Bob Filner (D-Calif.)
Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio)
Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.)
Charlie A. Gonzalez (D-Texas)
Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)
Alan Grayson (D-Fla.)
Al Green (D-Texas)
Gene Green (D-Texas)
Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.)
Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.)
John J. Hall (D-N.Y.)
Debbie Halvorson (D-Ill.)
Phil Hare (D-Ill.)
Jane Harman (D-Calif.)
Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.)
Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.)
Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
Jim Himes (D-Conn.)
Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.)
Ruben Hinojosa (D-Texas)
Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii)
Paul Hodes (D-N.H.)
Rush Holt (D-N.J.)
Mike Honda (D-Calif.)
Steny Hoyer (D-Md.)
Jay Inslee (D-Wash.)
Steve Israel (D-N.Y.)
Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.)
Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas)
Hank Johnson Jr. (D-Ga.)
E.B. Johnson (D-Texas)
Steve Kagen (D-Wis.)
Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.)
Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)
Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.)
Dale Kildee (D-Mich.)
Carolyn Kilpatrick (D-Mich.)
Mary Jo Kilroy (D-Ohio)
Ron Kind (D-Wis.)
Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)
Ron Klein (D-Fla.)
Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.)
Frank Kratovil Jr (D-Md.)
Leonard Lance (R-N.J.)
Jim Langevin (D-R.I.)
Rick Larsen (D-Wash.)
John Larson (D-Conn.)
Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)
Sander Levin (D-Mich.)
John Lewis (D-Ga.)
Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.)
Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.)
David Loebsack (D-Iowa)
Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)
Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.)
Ben Luján (D-N.M.)
Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.)
Daniel Maffei (D-N.Y.)
Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.)
Betsy Markey (D-Colo.)
Ed Markey (D-Mass.)
Doris Matsui (D-Calif.)
Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.)
Betty McCollum (D-M.N.)
Jim McDermott (D-Wash.)
James McGovern (D-Mass.)
John McHugh (R-N.Y.)
Michael McMahon (D-N.Y.)
Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.)
Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.)
Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.)
Michael Michaud (D-Maine)
Brad Miller (D-N.C.)
George Miller (D-Calif.)
Dennis Moore (D-Kan.)
Gwen Moore (D-Wis.)
Jim Moran (D-Va.)
Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.)
Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.)
Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.)
John Murtha (D-Pa.)
Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.)
Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.)
Richard Neal (D-Mass.)
James Oberstar (D-Minn.)
David Obey (D-Wis.)
John Olver (D-Mass.)
Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.)
Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J)
Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.)
Donald Payne (D-N.J.)
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.)
Tom Perriello (D-Va.)
Gary Peters (D-Mich.)
Collin Peterson (D-Minn.)
Chellie Pingree (D-Maine)
Jared Polis (D-Colo.)
David Price (D-N.C.)
Mike Quigley (D-Ill.)
Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.)
David Reichert (R-Wash.)
Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas)
Laura Richardson (D-Calif.)
Steven Rothman (D-N.J.)
Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Calif.)
Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.)
Bobby Rush (D-Ill.)
Tim Ryan (D-Ohio)
Linda T. Sánchez (D-Calif.)
Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.)
John P. Sarbanes (D-Md.)
Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.)
Mark Schauer (D-Mich.)
Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)
Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.)
Allyson Y. Schwartz (D-Pa.)
David Scott (D-Ga.)
Bobby Scott (D-Va.)
Jose E. Serrano (D-N.Y.)
Joe Sestak (D-Pa.)
Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.)
Brad Sherman (D-Calif.)
Heath Shuler (D-N.C.)
Albio Sires (D-N.J.)
Ike Skelton (D-Mo.)
Louise Slaughter (D-NY)
Chris Smith (R-N.J.)
Adam Smith (D-Wash.)
Vic Snyder (D-Ark.)
Zachary T. Space (D-Ohio)
Jackie Speier (D-Calif.)
John Spratt (D-S.C.)
Bart Stupak (D-Mich.)
Betty Sutton (D-Ohio)
Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.)
Harry Teague (D-N.M.)
Mike Thompson (D-Calif.)
Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)
John Tierney (D-Mass.)
Dina Titus (D-Nev.)
Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.)
Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.)
Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.)
Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.)
Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.)
Tim Walz (D-Minn.)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.)
Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)
Diane Watson (D-Calif.)
Melvin Watt (D-N.C.)
Henry Waxman (D-Calif.)
Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)
Peter Welch (D-Vt.)
Robert Wexler (D-Fla.)
Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.)
David Wu (D-Ore.)
John Yarmuth (D-Ky.)

Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.)
Todd Akin (R-Mo.)
Rodney Alexander (R-La.)
Jason Altmire (D-Pa.)
Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.)
Steve Austria (R-Ohio)
Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)
Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.)
J. Gresham Barrett (R-S.C.)
John Barrow (D-Ga.)
Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.)
Joe Barton (R-Texas)
Marion Berry (D-Ark.)
Judy Biggert (R-Ill.)
Brian Bilbray(R-Calif.)
Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.)
Rob Bishop (R-Utah)
Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.)
Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)
John A. Boehner (R-Ohio)
Jo Bonner (R-Ala.)
John Boozman (R-Ark.)
Dan Boren (D-Okla.)
Charles Boustany (R-La.)
Kevin Brady (R-Texas)
Bobby Bright (D-Ala.)
Paul Broun (R-GA)
Henry Brown, Jr. (R-SC)
Virginia Brown-Waite (R-Fla.)
Vern Buchanan (R-FL)
Michael Burgess (R-Texas)
Dan Burton (R-Ind.)
Steve Buyer (R-Ind.)
Ken Calvert (R-Calif.)
Dave Camp (R-Mich.)
John Campbell (R-Calif.)
Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
Joseph Cao (R-La.)
Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.)
Christopher P. Carney (D-Pa.)
John Carter (R-Texas)
Bill Cassidy (R-La.)
Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)
Travis W. Childers (D-Miss.)
Howard Coble (R-N.C.)
Mike Coffman (R-Colo.)
Tom Cole (R-Okla.)
Mike Conaway (R-Texas)
Jim Costa (D-Calif.)
Jerry Costello (D-Ill.)
Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.)
John Culberson (R-Texas)
Kathy Dahlkemper (D-Pa.)
Artur Davis (D-Ala.)
Geoff Davis (R-Ky.)
Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.)
Nathan Deal (R-Ga.)
Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.)
Charlie Dent (R-Pa.)
Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)
Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.)
Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.)
David Dreier (R-Calif.)
John J. Duncan, Jr. (R-Tenn.)
Chet Edwards (D-Texas)
Vernon J. Ehlers (R-Mich.)
Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.)
Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.)
Mary Fallin (R-Okla.)
John Fleming (R-La.)
Randy Forbes (R-Va.)
Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.)
Bill Foster (D-Ill.)
Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.)
Trent Franks (R-Ariz.)
Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.)
Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.)
Scott Garrett (R-N.J.)
Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.)
Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.)
Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)
Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)
Kay Granger (R-Texas)
Sam Graves (R-Mo.)
Parker Griffith (D-Ala.)
Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.)
Ralph M. Hall (R-Texas)
Gregg Harper (R-Miss.)
Doc Hastings (R-Wash.)
Dean Heller (R-N.V.)
Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas)
Wally Herger (R-Calif.)
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.)
Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.)
Tim Holden (D-Pa.)
Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.)
Bob Inglis (R-S.C.)
Darrell E. Issa (R-Calif)
Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.)
Timothy Johnson (R-Ill.)
Sam Johnson (R-Texas)
Walter Jones (R-N.C.)
Jim Jordan (R-Ohio)
Steve King (R-Iowa)
Pete King (R-N.Y.)
Jack Kingston (R-Ga.)
Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.)
Larry Kissell (D-N.C.)
John Kline (R-Minn.)
Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)
Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.)
Tom Latham (R-Iowa)
Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio)
Robert Latta (R-Ohio)
Christopher Lee (R-N.Y.)
Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.)
John Linder (R-Ga.)
Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)
Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.)
Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
Daniel Lungren (R-Calif.)
Connie Mack (R-Fla.)
Donald Manzullo (R-Ill.)
Kenny Marchant (R-Texas)
Jim Marshall (D-Ga.)
Eric Massa (D-N.Y.)
Jim Matheson (D-Utah)
Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
Michael McCaul (R-Texas)
Tom McClintock (R-Calif.)
Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.)
Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.)
Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.)
Buck McKeon (R-Calif.)
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.)
Charlie Melancon (D-La.)
John Mica (R-Fla.)
Jeff Miller (R-Fla.)
Candice Miller (R-Mich.)
Gary Miller (R-Calif.)
Walt Minnick (D-Idaho)
Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.)
Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.)
Jerry Moran (R-Kan.)
Tim Murphy (R-Pa.)
Sue Myrick (R-N.C.)
Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas)
Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)
Glenn Nye (D-Va.)
Pete Olson (R-Texas)
Solomon Ortiz (D-Texas)
Ron Paul (R-Texas)
Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.)
Mike Pence (R-Ind.)
Tom Petri (R-Wis.)
Joseph R. Pitts (R-Pa.)
Todd Russell Platts (R-Pa.)
Ted Poe (R-Texas)
Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.)
Bill Posey (R-Fla.)
Tom Price (R-Ga.)
Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.)
George P. Radanovich (R-Calif.)
Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.)
Dennis Rehberg (R-Mont.)
Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas)
Phil Roe (R-Tenn.)
Mike Rogers (R-Ala.)
Herold Rogers (R-Ky.)
Mike Rogers (R-Mich.)
Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.)
Tom Rooney (R-Fla.)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.)
Peter Roskam (R-Ill.)
Mike Ross (D-Ark.)
Ed Royce (R-Calif.)
Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)
John Salazar (D-Colo.)
Steve Scalise (R-La.)
Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio)
Aaron Schock (R-Ill.)
James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.)
Pete Sessions (R-Texas)
John Shadegg (R-Ariz.)
John Shimkus (R-Ill.)
Bill Shuster (R-Penn.)
Mike Simpson (R-Idaho)
Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)
Lamar Smith (R-Texas)
Mark Souder (R-Ind.)
Fortney Pete Stark (D-Calif.)
Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.)
John Tanner (D-Tenn.)
Gene Taylor (D-Miss.)
Lee Terry (R-Neb.)
Glen Thompson (R-Penn.)
Mac Thornberry (R-Texas)
Todd Tiahrt (R-Kansas)
Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio)
Michael Turner (R-Ohio)
Fred Upton (R-Mich.)
Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.)
Greg Walden (R-Ore.)
Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.)
Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.)
Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.)
Charles Wilson (D-Ohio)
Joe Wilson (R-S.C.)
Robert Wittman (R-Vir.)
Frank Wolf (R-Vir.)
Don Young (R-Alaska)
C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.)

Not voting: Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), and John Sullivan (R-Okla.).

Track the debate and take action >>>

Related Links:

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Climate Citizen: Wyclef Jean

U.S. Senate puts off action on climate bill until 2010

In prepping for today's House debate on Waxman-Markey, I watched a film. (No, not An Inconvenient Truth.)

It was David Mamet's mindbender, The Spanish Prisoner. The movie takes its title from a venerable long-con so complicated that -- I don't care how many times you've seen the film -- twenty minutes in and you'll have no idea who's zoomin' who.

It's the perfect choice, and not just because politics at this level is always part confidence game (with you and me cast as the mark). The movie works so well in part because opponents of the climate bill have their very own Spaniard. And, just as in the film, this guy is no prisoner. He's part of the con.

Meet Gabriel Calzada. George Will (no stranger to con games, himself) introduced him anew in a column yesterday as "The Spanish Professor."

You'll have to listen carefully, though, because key Republicans (Marsha Blackburn, TN, for example) are likely to use code, dropping oblique references to "the report from Spain." (See p. 434.)

As an indignantly redundant Ed Whitebield (R-KY) described Calzada's work, the "empirical study" uses "empirical data" to prove that for every "so-called green job" created in Spain under a cap-and-trade regime identical to Waxman-Markey, 2.2 good jobs were lost.

And that's the good news.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) says that the Spanish Prisoner Professor's study found we could lose 20 "regular" jobs (see pp. 442-3) for every green one created by the climate bill.

Scary stuff. In fact, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) says that after talking with Calzada, the climate bill now scares him more than the 9/11 terror attacks:

"[Calzada] said, America, are you crazy?We have got 17.5 percent unemployment in Spain, and you want to model your aspects [sic] after us? You have got to be kidding me...this debate is so crazy!"

The GOP fearmongers would have me scared, too, if I didn't know how this con game worked.

Let's start with el profesor Calzada himself, who according to a recent piece in the Washington Times, hails from "one of Spain's leading universities."

Is it:

a) The University of Salamanca, established in 1218;

b) The University of Navarra, regarded as the best private university in Spain; or,

c) The University of Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid campus, now celebrating its 10th anniversary.

If you guessed "C" you're right! (Although, URJC has yet to make it on any top 10, 100, or 250 lists of Spanish universities.)

OK, it may not be the most prestigous University in the world (or Spain or Madrid), but Calzada has a wonderful record that stretches back, um, a decade, when he earned his PhD. in economics from URJC, where he is now an Associate Professor of Economics.

Perhaps Calzada has been widely published? Strong but wrong. His school website lists only two obscure and fringy journals, "The Journal of Libertarian Studies" and something called "Economic Affairs y Procesos de Mercado," for which Calzada may also serve as "assistant manager (subdirector)."

As a final accolade, the site boasts that Calzada "has been economic advisor to several companies in the tourism industry."

What's left out is Calzada's links to several right-wing groups that claim global warming is a hoax.

This is the man Republican leaders cite most frequently to support their bogus claim that Waxman-Markey will lead to the destruction of millions of jobs in the United States.

They're wrapping things up in the House. After listening to the Republican whiners for several hours (I can't find my copy of the bill! You have so not proved global warming!), I'm ready to kick back and watch another film.

The bill is going to move over to the Senate, so I better make sure I keep my edge on Republican tactics. Anyone know where I can get my hands on a copy of the 1990 John Cusack classic, The Grifters?

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George Voinovich (R-Ohio) [UPDATED]

Al Franken (D-Minn.)

Once again Mick Jagger is right: “You can't always get what you want/But if you try sometimes you just might find/You get what you need.”

The House of Representatives is poised for its first-ever floor debate and series of votes on a landmark measure to reduce global warming pollution. This bill is revolutionary in its intent and, while imperfect in its means, it deserves the support of progressives.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act would establish binding greenhouse gas pollution limits, set the first national renewable electricity and efficiency standards for utilities, and improve efficiency standards for buildings and appliances—creating 1.7 million new jobs and spurring $150 billion in investments. At the same time the bill would also make ratepayers whole while protecting low-income families for the cost of less than a postage stamp.

The original draft of this bill included a more aggressive 2020 greenhouse gas reduction target and a higher renewable electricity standard. Both were lowered to reach a fragile compromise between environmental champions in the House of Representatives and others members concerned about local industries. Despite these changes, this bill starts the critical transition to a low-carbon economy. It sets a hard cap on emissions—something the previous administration was dead set against—that will be lowered over time so we can achieve the emissions reductions climate science demands over the next few decades.

In the short term, the cap will reduce emissions by the equivalent of removing 500 million cars from the road by 2020. The cap will also set a price on carbon pollution, reflecting the costs of dirty coal-fired electricity. It will spark more clean-energy innovation and private investment in energy efficiency and alternative energy, including wind and solar energy.

Passing this bill is the first arduous step toward energy transformation. Senate passage of similar legislation will be more difficult, and the Senate Energy Committee is off to an inauspicious beginning by passing an energy bill that would do little to boost investments in renewable electricity. The bill would allow oil drilling in an area only 45 miles off the Florida Gulf Coast and worsen global warming by lifting the prohibition against the federal government purchase of oil from Canadian tar sands, which produce twice as much greenhouse gas pollution as regular oil. The Senate bill is weak, toothless, and unacceptable, and it must be improved before it passes.

The U.S. political system has never attempted to solve a problem as complex as climate change, with all its scientific, economic, energy, security, and humanitarian dimensions. The congressional will to act lags far behind the scientific evidence that there is little time left to avert the worst impacts of global warming.

President Barack Obama’s determination to speed our energy transformation has brought defenders of the status quo out in force. Opponents of change understand that now is the best opportunity for our success. We have a new, very popular president, a dedicated speaker of the House, a determined Senate majority leader, and the numbers in both bodies to realize this clean-energy vision. Opponents know they must block these changes now or it will be too late. Conservatives joined by big oil and coal lobby groups have unleashed a massive campaign to block these measures.

Some of my allies in the progressive community worry about worst-case implementation scenarios that might eviscerate the American Clean Energy and Security Act ’s greenhouse gas pollution reductions. Because of these fears they believe that inaction is preferable to this action. I do not question their sincerity, but their strategy could prove disastrous. Without meaningful action in Congress, the Obama administration will lack the credibility to cajole developing nations to reduce their growing emissions as part of the Copenhagen global warming talks this December. The chance to adopt meaningful clean-energy and global warming policies will evaporate for at least two years.

Some advocates argue that congressional inaction is preferable because the Environmental Protection Agency can use its authority under the Clean Air Act to require power plants to reduce their emissions. I strongly believe that if Congress cannot muster the votes to pass a decent energy and climate bill, then the EPA can and indeed must act to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act. But I also know that approach is rife with peril. It would face legal assaults that would significantly delay implementation of any such reduction rules.

What’s more, the EPA lacks the authority to adopt and implement other important near-term pollution reduction tools, such as a national renewable electricity and efficiency standard. Relying on the EPA is an important fail-safe strategy, but that administrative path is rocky and long.

The American Clean Energy and Security Act is not all that environmentalists and progressives want. But we must pass this bill so that we can get what we need: a clean-energy law that creates jobs, reduces oil use, and cuts global warming pollution.

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We would appear to be closing in on a final deal and ultimate passage of the Waxman-Markey climate and clean energy bill by the House.  E&E News Reports (subs. req'd):

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) yesterday said he expected a floor victory, although he added that no scheduling decisions have been made.

"I think we'll get the votes on energy," Hoyer said. "But you know how it is, you've got to work it and figure out who's on first, and what triggers this guy to say ‘no' or triggers this guy to say ‘yes.'"

Waxman and other Democrats from the Energy and Commerce Committee are pressing for a floor debate before lawmakers leave Washington at the end of next week for the Independence Day recess.

As for the key negotiations with the agricultural committee, Waxman expects to wrap that up by tomorrow:

"I don't see it should go for any longer than that," Waxman told reporters yesterday when asked if he would set himself a deadline to finish negotiations with House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.).

The two powerful House Democrats said Thursday that they had made "good progress" in their talks on the climate bill, H.R. 2454, following an hourlong meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). But Waxman said yesterday that he has not spoken to Peterson since that session as the congressmen handed the negotiations over to their staffs.

Waxman declined to comment on the details of the climate talks, though the farm state lawmakers have not been shy in stating their problems with provisions in the bill that give U.S. EPA the principal oversight role for the carbon offset market. Peterson also is against a draft EPA regulation that would hold the ethanol industry accountable for "indirect land use," such as crop conversion in other countries.

House Democratic leaders are working behind the scenes to shore up support among the farm state lawmakers through language that could be added to the bill in a manager's amendment package. It is unclear, though, if those changes will be enough.

"We're getting there," Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said yesterday. "It's a close vote."

Clyburn said his whip operation started two weeks ago in preparation for the floor debate, with a large focus on the farmers. "I think there are some real concerns that the rural communities have, especially the co-ops, as to how they are faring, and the states that they represent, how they fare in all of this as opposed to larger states," Clyburn said. "And so we've got to work out all of those equity issues."

It no longer looks any other committee will be marking up the bill:

Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) said he wants House Democratic leaders to shift their focus entirely to the health care debate. The nine-term congressman also predicted Peterson would not move in any formal way to vote on Waxman's legislation. "I don't expect a markup in Ag because it would not be passed out favorably," Pomeroy said.

Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee are also expected to sidestep any formal action on the climate bill as they keep their attention entirely on President Obama's health care reform package.

"I don't see any indication the committee will mark up the bill," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee. "It's very unfortunate."

So if a deal can be struck to satisfy Peterson, the possibility of a floor vote next week remains open.

Related Links:

Fourteen Democratic senators stick up for coal

House passes landmark health-care bill with one GOP vote

When will we stop paying the hidden fossil fuel tax?

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963

Last month, as protestors from around the country converged in the Coal River Valley in West Virginia to protest Massey Energy's reckless mountaintop removal blasting operations within a short distance of a 7-billion gallon coal sludge impoundment, their ranks included 94-year-old former US Representative Ken Hechler.

It was not the legendary West Virginia congressman's first march for justice: In 1965, Hechler was the only member of the US Congress to join Martin Luther King, Jr. on his march for civil rights in Selma, Alabama.

Nearly 45 years after that historic moment, Hechler has a message for President Barack Obama: It's time for President Obama to have a Harry S. Truman moment, and issue an executive order to abolish the destructive practice of mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

Standing in defiance at the Massey property line of a mountaintop removal mining operation that could jeopardize the lives of thousands of valley residents--Massey's own evacuation plan determined that if the Brushy Fork coal sludge impoundment broke, nearly 1,000 nearby residents would have less than 4 minutes to flee--Hechler called on Washington, DC to recognize the urgent crisis at hand.

On the heels of last December's TVA coal ash pond disaster, Hechler referred to the Brushy Fork Dam as an example of the "arrogance of power." Hechler declared: "The freedom of Massey is a clear and present danger to everybody that lives below Brushy Fork. Their freedom ends because they have put thousands of people at risk, who would be surely killed just the way the 125 were killed in 1972 on Buffalo Creek. The first three words of the constitution are 'We the People,' not 'We the Corporations.'"

Hechler said he has great confidence in President Obama's judgment, though he remains concerned that an obsession with consensus could yield to pressure from the coal lobby. "It's a pipe dream that you can achieve progress only through consensus," Hechler told me, "especially when certain coal companies want to drive loopholes through otherwise principled legislation." "You've got to be ready to make enemies in order to accomplish something."

Hechler is no stranger to courageous American presidents or the investigation of enemies. During World War II, serving as a major, Hechler took part in a five-man team that interrogated Nazi war criminals, including Hermann Goering and Joachim von Ribbentrop. As a history professor and author, he assisted Franklin D. Roosevelt with his 13-volume "Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt." But it was his tenure as a special research assistant for President Harry Truman that taught Hechler a lesson on a president's imperative to go against the Washington lobbies and conventional wisdom and make a historic stand. In Truman's case, risking the backlash of his own Democratic Party, and with a recent Gallup Poll that 82 percent of Americans were against his civil rights program, the president issued two "blockbuster executive orders" on July 26, 1948: Truman integrated the US military.

For Hechler, it is time for President Obama, who called for an end to "blowing off the tops of mountains" in his campaign, to make a historic move for justice in the coalfields.

A hero to coal miners in Appalachia and around the nation, Hechler's understanding of the complexities of the coalfield economy is unmatched in the country. Hechler's congressional leadership led to the passing of The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, which was the first legislation to deal with black lung disease from coal dust. In 1971, Hechler took the lead in dealing with another coal mining issue: strip-mining and mountaintop removal. He held the first hearings on mountaintop removal in 1971.

Hechler introduced the first federal bill to abolish strip-mining in the spring of 1971. As Hechler testified in a House committee in 1971: "Representing the largest coal-producing state in the nation, I can testify that strip-mining has ripped the guts out of our mountains, polluted our streams with acid and silt, uprooted trees and forests, devastated the land, seriously destroyed wildlife habitat, left miles of ugly highwalls, ruined the water supply in many areas, and left a trail of utter despair for many honest and hard-working people."

In 1977, Hechler's long-time crusade against strip-mining was ultimately betrayed by various compromising forces in Congress, resulting in the passing of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, which provided federal sanctioning of mountaintop removal. Since then, over 500 mountains in Appalachia have been blown to bits, over 1.5 million acres of hardwood forests in the most diverse and ancient mountain range on the continent have been wiped out, and 1,200 miles of streams have been jammed and sullied with mining waste. And Appalachia's coalfields remain a "trail of utter despair" for many communities.

As three million pounds of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosives continue to rip daily through the Appalachian mountains, and as the EPA continues to hand out permits for mountaintop removal, whether or not President Obama heeds Rep. Hechler's call for a courageous Truman moment remains to be seen.

Standing in the sun at the Massey Energy mountaintop removal operation last month, the 94-year-old Hechler showed no sign of retreating on this egregious violation of human rights and the environment. "It's absolutely necessary that people here today continue to demonstrate against this highly destructive practice," he called out to the protestors.

Here's a clip from Russ Barbour and Chip Hitchcock's film documentary on Hechler, "Pursuit of Justice":

Related Links:

Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things

Climate Hope: Inspiring 2009 Books for Clean Energy

What Do Coal and Dirty Dorm Rooms Have in Common?

Okay, I don’t know if it is a scoop, heck, I don’t know for certain it is true, but a very reliable source tells me that speaker Pelosi wants the climate bill on the House floor the last week in June.

That is consistent with what Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said (see “House Majority Leader says climate bill will see fast action“).  But it will require a lot of speedy deal-making.  Still, it suggests the speaker does not see any deal breakers in the path to House passage, even though, as Wonk Room reports, “Brown Dogs Poised To Block Green Economy Legislation.”

And Sen. Boxer (D-CA) can certainly get something close to the Waxman-Markey bill out of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee by the fall.  And let’s assume for now it doesn’t get mired in any other committees

And that brings me to the climate politics question of the week:

Will moderate and conservative Senate Democrats — the Gang of 16 — vote for something that is called the Boxer-Waxman-Markey Bill?  Or will they embarce a not-invented-here mentality and insist on substantially weakening it?

After all, at least one of them is already hard at work trying to gut an already weak Senate Renewable Energy Standard, which itself is weaker than the Waxman-Markey RES.  As Wonk Room explained last week, “Evan Bayh votes against a national renewable electricity standard that even Republicans supported“:

Bayh said Indiana would be among the states that would bear a disproportionate share of the cost of meeting the requirement. He said a fairer system would be offering tax credits for producing power from renewable sources.

The standard of 15 percent renewable energy or efficiency gains by 2021 is significantly weaker than President Obama’s preferred standard of 25 percent by 2025. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) joined 11 Democrats in support of the standard, and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) did not vote.

All you Hoosiers out there need to let your Senator know what you think with letters and phone calls.  He is going to be a hard sell — and one more reason why we need some sort of the deal with China this fall (see Bayh’s exchange with Energy Secretary Chu in “Does a serious bill need action from China?“)

Related Links:

Fourteen Democratic senators stick up for coal

House passes landmark health-care bill with one GOP vote

When will we stop paying the hidden fossil fuel tax?

The Climate Post is a weekly roundup of climate news, produced by the The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.

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Lately, every week is the most consequential in the history of climate change. This week was no exception. A House of Representatives committee slogged through its potentially game-changing climate bill. The White House struck a deal with auto manufacturers and California to raise fuel efficiency - and consequently reduce carbon emissions. Uneven signals from China promise hope for some kind of agreement but foreshadow a tough road to achieve it. These are all simultaneous episodes in a larger story of transformation.

The House at the Center of the World: The House of Representatives now sits at the epicenter. Rep. Henry Waxman's Energy and Commerce Committee last Friday unveiled a full draft of the American Clean Energy and Security Act, cogently and quickly summarized by the Washington Post and Reuters. Democrats came to initial agreement on some of the thorniest issues, including how to allocate carbon credits to heavy polluters and other market participants, according to Greenwire. Among the major recipients of help, power companies will receive 35 percent of the allowances, natural gas distributors 9 percent, and energy-intensive, trade-sensitive industries 15 percent.

The committee is voting the bill Waxman co-sponsored with Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) to the full House at this very writing. Through these minute-by-minute details, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture.

Jargon Watch: Now and then, a word or phrase escapes the rarified journals and policy discussions where it was born, and greets an unsuspecting public. Such is the case with "cap and trade," memorably deployed to mean "vague thing I'm supposed to understand but don't" by the New York Times‘ Maureen Dowd in a March column. ClimateWire has had fun with variations of it.

Whatever you call it, it's the centerpiece of the Waxman-Markey bill.

In the last week or two, commentators and columnists have taken to op-ed pages with arguments against cap-and-trade, for it, and, well, mostly against it. (Policy op-eds frequently challenge the dominant trend.) Remember that a national climate policy, be it cap-'n-trade, or a carbon tax, or Cap'n-America, is not an end in itself, but a way to help us help ourselves. Climate policy is designed to fix "the carbon problem" in our markets: Polluting is free but eventually could have seriously undesirable consequences.

What "cap-and-trade" means, and where it could carry us, hasn't yet penetrated the chatter. E&E News reported this week that "[O]verall support for cap and trade trails far behind backing for increased investment in renewable energy, improved fuel efficiency for vehicles, implementation of a renewable electricity standard and even increased offshore drilling." A cap and trade system is supposed to nudge the market toward increasing demand for new energy sources. Climate policy is a lever that increases investment in renewables, fuel efficiency, and may or may not affect the economics of oil drilling at home. The relationship between a national climate policy and these desirable goals isn't "either-or" but "if-then."

White House firing on all cylinders (now with greater efficiency): While the Energy and Commerce Committee worked over the Waxman-Markey bill, the administration announced the first major climate rule in U.S. history. Much to the administration's delight, no one leaked news about new auto fuel efficiency standards before President Barack Obama's announcement on Tuesday. That means official sources were willing to play along, as reporters captured rich chronologies (called "tick-tock" in the biz) of the secret negotiations, particularly the Los Angeles Times (LAT) and ClimateWire. The LAT pins down insider details, such as Ford's 3 p.m. Sunday call to the White House saying the deal was off, and the subsequent impromptu cell-phone negotiations, with participants phoning from the bathroom at a Washington National's game and a birthday party in New York. The new Corporate Auto Fuel Economy (CAFE) rules will establish a nationwide standard by 2016 that should reduce carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. cars and light-trucks by 30 percent.

Scaling the Great Wall that divides us: Secret negotiations were a motif this week. U.S. and Chinese negotiators began meeting last July trying to bridge their differences on emissions reductions, symbolically at the Great Wall. The Guardian broke news of the meetings on Monday, reporting that senior Bush administration advisers and several current Obama advisers met with Chinese officials. The back-channel talks led in March to an unsigned memorandum of understanding, which participants hope will embolden the world's two largest national emitters to find a common ground in addressing the causes of climate change. The news comes at a time when the international climate community is gearing up for negotiations in December in Copenhagen.

Obama on Monday picked Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as his ambassador to China. A savvy selection, Huntsman is an up-and-comer in the Republican party, has served as Deputy U.S. Trade Representative, and speaks fluent Mandarin. The Nicholas Institute, which operates The Climate Post, has conducted modeling studies of Utah's policy options on climate change, under Huntsman's administration. Obama has indicated he expects climate change to hold a prominent spot in Huntsman's portfolio.

Talks between developed and developing nations will continue to shape international climate politics (witness the Indo-Asian News Service's interest in an amendment to a bill moving through a House committee). The secret talks reported by the Guardian are only one item of interest in a complicated U.S.-Chinese relationship. Chinese officials confirmed for the Alliance France Presse earlier today their negotiating position for the end-of-the-year Copenhagen talks: China will ask that industrialized nations commit to emissions targets 40 percent below the amount they emitted in 1990 by 2020. The European Union has resigned itself to 20 percent reductions, and the House climate bill would reduce pollution 20 percent below 2005 levels.

Any unified global action must consider and guide international trade. The Washington Post showed just how complicated these relationships can be, in a front-page story Monday about the rise of China as a car-maker. Chinese companies have grown quickly, which means that their firms lack the technical expertise that can only emerge with time. "What they still lack is... being able to design new vehicles from scratch and get them to a manufacturing line," Kelly Sims Gallagher of Harvard's Kennedy School told the Post. A probable result: Chinese firms will try and buy ailing U.S. car companies - and their valuable human capital. Don't miss Business Week's in-depth package on greening China.

Reporting? We don't need no stinkin' reporting!: Fortune magazine recently held its second Brainstorm Green conference, a star-studded event that brought together luminaries from the politics and business worlds. But editors undermined their expertise in climate issues - in business, politics, policy, and science - by publishing an article lacking the rigor and seriousness characteristic to the publication.

"What if global warming fears are overblown?" - the headline - is an important question to ask. Climate fears might be overblown. They are more likely "underblown." But the risk of climate change - the consequences of catastrophic change times its probability - is serious enough to prompt global and quick action, a point the article fails to make. Instead, a financial writer, Jon Birger, asks "softball" questions of a University of Alabama, Huntsville, scientist, whose skepticism about the potential for severe global warming is out of step with the work of scientists who have re-examined his work in peer-reviewed journals (here, for example). It's not as obviously wrong as reporting in 2009 that, say, Sadaam Hussein currently has weapons of mass destruction (after he was both revealed not to and publicly hanged). But it's a problem that Birger and Fortune's piece is not obviously wrong, particularly to Fortune editors who should know better if Brainstorm Green means anything. Climate science is a vast body of physical, evidence, assembled by thousands of people, worldwide, over several decades. Putting eight questions to a scientist whose ideas were challenged professionally at least four years ago fails to communicate the preponderance of evidence that is driving the world to reduce the (rising) climate risk.

Related Links:

On “climategate”

Chuck Norris on Copenhagen

The U.S.-India climate ‘partnership’

Memo to House GOP:  We get it.  You don’t believe in clean, safe sources of energy that never run out or in protecting our children and grandchildren from catastrophic global warming or in competing with China, Japan, and Europe for the jobs and industries of the future or in making polluters pay (see House GOP pledge to fight all action on climate).

But your list of 450 planned amendments to Waxman-Markey during the markup next week — [insomniacs can download the list here] — goes beyond principled opposition to petty politics.

Two dozens amendments removing the tax benefits for each and every corporate member of the US Climate Action Partnership (which served as the basis of Waxman-Markey)?  How proud the founding fathers would be to see you try to use the tools of governance for meaningless attempts at retribution.

And 50 separate amendments to let each individual state opt out?  [Plus a DC-opt-out amendment! It's nice to know you thought of us, too, even though you won't let us have any representation in our government, but, thank you, no, we want clean energy jobs and a livable climate.]

I am interested to see details of the “American Hero Exemption and Credit,” but since it follows the “Defense Department Exemption,” I’m guessing it would be an amendment to exempt veterans from the bill.  Of course, if America keeps following your all of the above more-of-the-same energy policy, then we’ll end up with lots more veterans as it would mean our dependence on oil from unstable regions would keep rising and rising.

And what is the point of more than 100 amendments of the form:

What can one say but, Joe ‘get shade’ Barton and House GOP plan to fiddle furiously while planet burns.

And speaking of letting the planet burn, the House GOP has introduced its alternative bill (summary here).  You can’t really call it an alternative climate bill, since it doesn’t stop US greenhouse gas emissions from rising and the words “climate change” and “global warming” hardly appear in it at all — except to strip any authority from the EPA to address the problem.  The bill doesn’t define the GOP position so much as redefine it or rather undefine it — the bill would undefine the word “pollutant” so that it doesn’t include greenhouse gases, and undefine renewable energy so that it does include nuclear power.

Indeed, the plan is almost indistinguishable from the infamous Cheney energy plan.  You’ll remember that at the beginning of the Bush administration Cheney developed a “comprehensive” energy plan after consulting with a vast array of stakeholders — from “Exxon to “Mobil” as one pundit quipped.  Well, the House GOP remove the staples and replaced the cover.

Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, has an excellent critique first published by Wonk Room, which I reprint below:

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, today unveiled a cynical Republican alternative to the clean energy jobs legislation being developed by committee Democrats. Barton is arguing that his legislation is a “viable alternative to a mandatory cap and trade plan” that sets economy-wide standards for global warming pollution.

In reality, it’s hardly a viable alternative — only something that can be presented as one. This is basically a PR stunt aimed at conning the public to stay stuck in the same dirty energy rut that is destroying our economy and environment.

The Barton plan summary I’ve reviewed includes such choice items as:

– Repealing the Supreme Court decision which said the US EPA could limit greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

– Preempting state authority to reduce climate-related emissions. This is a direct attack on California and other states that have sought to avert the threat of catastrophic global warming and create green jobs.

– Providing regulatory and financial rewards to coal-burning power plants that use “currently available technology.” In other words, more dirty coal-fired plants that kill and sicken our children and grandparents.

– Providing new subsidies for hazardous nuclear power plants.

– Defines nuclear power and advanced coal technology as “renewable.”

– Repealing “decoupling” mandates that reward utilities for reducing wasted energy.

– Promoting more oil drilling off the coasts and Luntzian “environmentally sensitive American energy exploration” in the Arctic wildlife refuge.

– Subsidizing climate-killer fuels produced from coal, oil shale, methane hydrates, and tar sands.

While not quite ignoring the threat of climate change, Barton’s bill does spit in the face of science. The bill includes a provision that establishes emissions performance standards for new coal plants — but “all existing generating facilities are grandfathered.” Unsurprisingly, Barton’s proposed standards are laughably weak, onlying require coal plants to be as efficient as less-polluting natural gas plants by 2030. This proposal, combined with the incentives for new drilling, the reversal of fuel economy standards, and promotion of highly polluting alternative fuels, would guarantee that U.S. emissions would continue to increase without bound for the foreseeable future.

Barton is just blowing smoke: new subsidies for oil, coal, and nuclear, rollbacks of environmental standards, Orwellian language, and denial of the science of climate change. Wasn’t eight years of planetary and economic destruction enough?

Wasn’t 8 years of Cheney-Bush enough?

Related head-in-the-sand conservatives:

Related Links:

On “climategate”

What to make of the new climate poll

Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Enlightenment thinking

I don't think most people appreciate the level of stupidity that people in Congress consume and pass on every day. Witness this, the opening statement of Joe Barton (R-Tx.) at a hearing today on climate adaptation. It begins with the immortal tautology: "Adapting is a common way for people to adapt to their environment."

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On “climategate”

What to make of the new climate poll

Obama administration may (finally) offer greenhouse-gas targets

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Henry Waxman’s decade-long fight to improve the Clean Air Act

The new Senate global warming deniers

Are the South and the Midwest splitting on energy?

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