Ben Nelson

Sen. Ben Nelson doesn’t believe a cap-and-trade climate bill can pass Congress this session, he said on Oct. 30—and he doesn’t intend to do anything to help it.

“I haven’t been able to sell that argument to my farmers, and I don’t think they’re going to buy it from anybody else,” Nelson said in an interview on CNBC.  “I think at the end of the day, the people who turn the switch on at home will be disadvantaged.”

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Here’s more on Nelson and climate, as written by Kate Sheppard on July 24, 2009:

Nelson has made it clear that he is willing to buck his party on a climate bill—or any bill, for that matter.

“I am not about to surrender any of my votes on the basis that there are now 60 members of my caucus,” Nelson told The New York Times. “I don’t think we will walk in lockstep. It will be issue by issue.”

Nelson, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, is concerned about how a climate bill would affect the agriculture sector.  The ag lobby secured major concessions in the House climate bill that passed in June, but it’s not clear if those are enough to get Nelson on board.

“Every farm-state senator is aware of what the cap-and-trade proposals could do to their agriculture base,” said Nelson. “Agriculture is a big user of electricity. There’s a recognition that when electricity costs go up it can add, in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars in costs at a time when commodity prices are not what they were. So we have to be very concerned.”

Earlier this year, Nelson was among the Democrats who voted against using the budget process to approve climate legislation.

In May of last year, he expressed support for a climate bill from Ohio Republican George Voinovich that made enviros queasy.

One month later, in June 2008, he voted to send the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act to a floor vote, but then signed a letter from 10 swing-vote Democrats noting that he would have opposed final passage of the bill.  Here’s what Nelson said in a press release after that vote:

I have concerns about the climate change bill and will not vote for it. Global climate change is an environmental problem that requires energy solutions. I believe we need a comprehensive and coherent energy policy for this nation that will also help address the emissions problems contributing to global climate change. But this bill is not that policy and I do not support it.

Track the debate and take action >>>I voted for cloture on the bill to allow it to move forward because I do not support procedural gimmicks that prevent a bill from getting an up or down vote. I think the Senate should vote this bill down and move forward with establishing a National Commission on Energy Policy and Global Climate Change so that the next Congress and the next Administration can work from a comprehensive legislative blueprint developed by a non-partisan commission.

Do you know more about this senator’s stance on climate legislation?  Tell us.

Find out about other senators by clicking on their names in the right column.

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We say "greenest city in America," and you say -- Portland? Seattle? Savannah? Try Hastings, Nebraska. The town of 25,000 beat out some 350 other cities to win a contest sponsored by Yahoo! as part of the portal's "Be a Better Planet" initiative. Yes, we're pretty sure we just got suckered into giving Yahoo! a free plug, and we're not entirely sure that Hastings -- birthplace of Kool-Aid -- is ultra-green so much as ultra-good at organizing its residents to use Yahoo!. But we're still going to celebrate the fact that a central Nebraska town is shouting its green cred from the rooftops. Eco-initiatives there include energy-efficient streetlights, an extensive network of parks and trails, and, uh, ethanol production -- but civic leaders, who walked away with $250,000 for the honor, say green is just common sense. Simple things like shutting off lights and enjoying the outdoors are, says Lt. Gov. and former Hastings mayor Rick Sheehy, "things that we as Nebraskans have done all of our lives."

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