Political, Environmental Leaders: Climate Legislation in Big Trouble

The Washington Post asked political and environmental experts whether the recent blizzard in the nation's capital had killed climate change legislation for this year. Most said the legislation would not go forward this year and some pointed out that the extreme winter weather could be an indication of climate change.

Former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman, also an ex-New Jersey governor, told the Post: "Among the reasons winter storms will make this issue more politically challenging are overreach and simplification--on both sides of the debate."

Kenneth P. Green and Steven F. Hayward from the American Enterprise Institute said climate legislation was in trouble before the storm due to "horrific unemployment reports, lackluster economic growth, massive Tea Party rallies and vicious town hall meetings. After the breakdown in Copenhagen, the explosion of 'Climategate' and the election of Scott Brown, the Democrats' rapid pivot to focus on jobs was inevitable." They maintained that passing the legislation would compromise U.S. effectiveness in negotiating GHG-reduction targets with other countries.

David G. Hawkins of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he believed "common sense" would prevail, storm or not. He was quoted as saying: "Fortunately, a growing number of lawmakers understand there are solutions that will create jobs and enhance energy security while cutting the pollution that contributes to climate change. They are joined by business leaders, labor, veterans, religious groups and others who know that waiting to act would be a huge, costly mistake."

Democratic pollster Douglas E. Schoen answered the Post's question by saying: "The recent bout of wintry weather and the overall political climate have almost certainly killed climate-change legislation this year. The weather this winter, particularly in the past week or so, makes it more difficult to argue that global warming is an imminent danger and suggests that global warming may well not be as inexorable a force as some believe."

Emily Y. Figdor, director of Environment America's federal global warming program, said that the storms underscored the need for climate change legislation, "yet the legislative environment is uncertain." She said that if the measure put forward by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, to stop the administration from enforcing the Clean Air Act passes, "it will indeed bury real legislation on the issue this year."

Ed Rogers, chairman of BGR Group and White House staffer to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said what he called the Global Warming Movement, whose "leaders have tried to stiff-arm their way past errors, lies, fraud, pointless tax increase proposals and some really peculiar posing in Copenhagen," suffered a humiliating comeuppance with the storm. He was quoted as saying: "The movement was already dead in Congress for 2010 (its climate-change bill has been sidelined), but Snowmageddon buried it. How could it be that heat waves evidenced global warming, but so did a cold wave? The public isn't buying it anymore."