President to Hold Bipartisan Meeting Today on Climate, Energy

The Wall Street Journal today reported that Congressional Democrats are looking to use a bipartisan meeting with President Obama on Tuesday to leverage a clear solution to energy and climate efforts on Capitol Hill.

Energy & Environment reported today that even if the Senate passed a watered-down version of climate and energy legislation before the mid-term elections, the House-Senate conference committee could end up revisiting everything, including a cap-and-trade program, during a subsequent lame duck session. Wrote the newsletter: "Even if they do not enact cap and trade, Democratic leaders could use a conference to ratchet up the climate regulations past what the Senate agreed to and beyond what Democratic House centrists want."

Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have expressed reservations about leaving so much work to the conferees. Sanders was quoted as saying: "Members of the Senate have their views as to what constitutes a strong bill, and they're going to want to be heard on this." The policies that could be radically revised during a conference, the newsletter reported, include oil spill liability, stricter drilling regulations, a renewable energy standard, sharing offshore drilling royalties with states, nuclear plant loan guarantees "and the big one -- a price on carbon."

A question that adds more uncertainty is what bill Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would bring to the Senate floor. One possibility is that he would add climate provisions to a legislative response to the oil spill on the assumption that the latter would have to pass or he could add the oil spill provisions to an energy-only bill. If Reid went with the latter strategy, it would present a problem for conservative Democrats who would rather vote on an energy bill after the elections, even though they might want to go home in November with a credible bill to stop future oils spills.

- Related story appeared in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire.