The Economist: GHG Emissions Caps Could Fall to EPA, States

According to The Economist, the energy legislation currently before the Senate shows that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., "having earlier abandoned as hopeless an effort to limit America's emissions of greenhouse gases through a 'cap-and-trade' scheme, is proposing nothing more substantial than subsidies for home insulation and trucks that run on natural gas."

Republicans' opposition to cap and trade, which they have called an energy tax, derives from the correct conclusion that energy bills would go up if a price were put on carbon, The Economist wrote. Their opposition could be even stronger after the November elections. Coal-state Democrats remain unenthusiastic, the American public appears to be losing interest, and President Barack Obama's involvement has been detached, despite his campaign statements and his work at the United Nations climate talks last year in Copenhagen.

Nonetheless, the administration has opened other paths: Should legislation fail, EPA has indicated its intent to regulate GHGs. Federal agencies have discretionary power to set fuel-efficiency and appliance-efficiency standards. And states could continue setting their own standards. Nicholas Bianco and Franz Litz of the World Resources Institute estimated that emissions could be cut 13 percent by 2020 using just existing state and federal laws.

But piecemeal regulations would leave confusion and uncertainty. "That may leave big energy firms regretting their opposition to cap and trade. As one old utility hand puts it, 'There's a sense of ruefulness in the industry.' It is widely shared," wrote The Economist.

Atlantic Examines How Climate Legislation Failed in Senate

Several critical mistakes helped kill climate change legislation in the Senate, wrote Atlantic blogger Brian Goldsmith. According to Daniel Lashof, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center, one element was losing control of the message after climate change legislation passed the House: "Democrats were not prepared, and we [in the environmental community] didn't do enough to explain, why this was good policy."

A second reason was a less than forceful response to Climategate. Senate leaders--and President Obama--had other issues on their mind. Environmental Defense's Tony Kreindler was quoted as saying: "It should be self-evident we haven't seen the level of engagement by the president necessary to seal the deal."

Losing the support of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., was devastating. Kreindler said that a lack of support outside the Senate played a part: "We were close with the utilities, not with the manufacturers ... these agreements are important not because of special interest politics and the influence of big money but because having everyone at the table helps make policies that are durable and effective."

If an energy package fails to pass before the August recess, said Goldsmith, senators could try to pass a utility-specific CO2 cap in September, they could go for a comprehensive bill in the lame-duck session after the November elections, or they could wait until the next Congress and attempt to get a carbon cap through.

For now, said Goldsmith, the legislation put forward by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has the support of most environmental leaders. He said the legislation would not "take off the table incentives to approve cap-and-trade at a later date--given that none of the pollution credits and industry subsidies in Waxman-Markey carried over to the Reid bill."

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.

Washington Post Finds Merit in Three Ways to Tackle GHG Emissions

The Washington Post, in an editorial published today on President Obama's planned meeting with senators about climate and energy legislation, said the most helpful thing they could do was "put a gradually rising price on the carbon emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels. The best way to do this would be with a simple tax."

Second best, said the Post, would be cap and trade: "Some argue that it's more realistic for Democrats to press only for politically attractive things such as clean-energy mandates, efficiency standards, research and development funding and lots of energy subsidies. But that approach is expensive and almost certainly inadequate to meet even the underwhelming medium-term emissions targets Mr. Obama has set."

The Post suggested a third option, to include "those politically attractive measures, as well as GOP priorities such as generous provisions for nuclear power and some of the efficiency programs that Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) proposed in a bill he recently unveiled--but to add a cap on emissions from utilities," because setting a "price on carbon even in one economic sector might make it easier to establish a more effective cap in the future."

Focus Increases on Utilities-Only Bill

In a lead-in to Wednesday's scheduled meeting between President Obama and a bipartisan group of senators on climate and energy legislation, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the session was expected to focus on new ways to target GHG emissions from power plants. On legislation aimed far more broadly, Pew Center on Global Climate Change President Eileen Claussen was quoted as saying the "longer we keep batting around proposals that do not have much of a chance, the less likely we are to get something that does have a chance" approved before elections in November.

EEI spokesman Dan Riedinger said investor-owned utilities have yet to take a position on legislation aimed solely at power plants because they were concentrating on economy-wide cap-and-trade proposals. Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein wrote that a "utilities-only cap-and-trade program should be designed such that it can eventually become an economy-wide cap-and-trade program."

L.A. Times Calls for Climate Leadership From President Obama

The Los Angeles Times, in an editorial published today, said polls on energy policy indicated Americans were concerned about the environment and they are seeking leadership on the issue from President Obama. The newspaper noted that Obama's speech last week on the BP oil rig accident "was expected to mark the start of a major White House push for legislation aimed at clean energy and climate change, but the second part of that package went down like a crude-coated pelican. Obama's failure to mention cap-and-trade, or any other scheme to price greenhouse-gas emissions, suggests he doesn't intend to pursue it."

The Times wrote that Obama was bowing to political reality: "He can count votes as well as anybody, and it's clear that the 60 votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster on a climate bill just aren't there. Yet the president's habit of leading from the rear is in part responsible for that." The Times said the other message underlying recent polls was that Americans appeared to have few substantial ideas about combating climate change, but they knew it would cost them a great deal.

White House: Obama Would Veto Resolution to Stop EPA GHG Regs

The White House has signaled that President Obama would veto a resolution preventing EPA from regulating GHGs should it reach his desk. The measure was expected to come up for a vote in the Senate on Thursday, the Green Inc. blog reported in the New York Times. A Statement of Administration Policy released by the White House said the resolution put forward by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, would undermine the Clean Air Act and prevent EPA from following through on a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that the agency had to decide whether CO2 and other GHGs were a threat to human health and the environment.

Murkowski and the 40 co-sponsors of the resolution have argued that Congress, not EPA, should determine energy and environment policy for the nation. Wrote John M. Broder in the Green Inc. blog: "As of Tuesday, Ms. Murkowski appeared short of the 51 votes needed to pass the resolution. Even if it were to get through the Senate, it is unlikely to pass in the House."

- Related story also appeared in the Washington Post.

Obama Outlines Push for Energy, Climate Bill

President Obama, as part of a speech at Carnegie Mellon University, said he would get comprehensive energy and climate legislation passed by the Senate and reiterated his support for expanded offshore oil production, E&E News PM reported. Obama was quoted as saying: "I will continue to make the case for a clean-energy future wherever and whenever I can. I will work with anyone to get this done. And we will get it done."

The Pittsburgh Business Times reported that Obama called on Congress to embrace a clean energy future, which, the president said, "means tapping into our natural gas reserves, and moving ahead with our plan to expand our nation's fleet of nuclear power plants. And it means rolling back billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development."

Some, such as Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a co-author of the climate bill before the Senate, saw Obama's speech as indicating a new level of commitment. He was quoted as saying: "President Obama is clearly putting his shoulder to the wheel to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year. Nothing could be more definitive than his explicit commitment today to find the remaining votes needed to pass this vital legislation."

Others, such as Scott Segal, an industry attorney at Bracewell & Giuliani, said more would be needed. "In order to find the votes to pass climate change legislation, he'll need to spend the equal political capital that was needed to pass health care. That's true given the time and the circumstances."

- Related stories also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal.

U.S. Says GHG Emissions to Rise 4 Percent Through 2020

The U.S., in its first climate report in four years to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said its GHG emissions were expected to grow by 4 percent through 2020, in part due to growth in the use of hydrofluorocarbons, the Associated Press reported. The State Department wrote in the report: "A large portion of emissions growth is driven by HFCs, which are projected to more than double between 2005 and 2020, as they are more extensively used as a substitute for ozone-depleting substances."

Samuel LaBudde, atmospheric campaign director for the Environmental Investigation Agency, was quoted as saying: "Unless they are eliminated, HFCs and fluorinated gases will sabotage efforts to combat global warming. We could and should use the Montreal Protocol to phase them out."

The report said the U.S. would contribute "its share to developed country financing approaching $30 billion for 2010-2012," in keeping with the deal President Obama negotiated with China and other developing countries at the December climate summit in Copenhagen. The Obama administration's budget would provide more than $2 billion for climate research, said the report.

New Republic Calls for Obama to Lead on Climate Change Bill

A New Republic editorial criticized President Obama for failing to provide leadership on climate change legislation despite the conflict in the Senate sparked by the plan of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to advance an immigration bill ahead of climate. The magazine wrote that President Obama "stood passively by while Reid pushed immigration forward" and was "yet to come out fully in favor of tackling energy as his next big priority."

The editorial cited the oil spill off the Louisiana coast as an instance of Obama missing an "opportunity to explain the urgent necessity of moving toward cleaner forms of energy" given the environmental harm caused by fossil fuels. The New Republic wrote that "a climate bill is less likely than a noisy immigration push to improve the Democrats' prospects for the midterms," but added that the progress already achieved on climate argued for focusing on it instead of immigration, which was "unlikely to go anywhere this year."

The magazine wrote: "Obama and the Democrats should take this opportunity to remind voters that doing nothing and waiting for disaster to strike is by far the most costly option."

Friedman Tells Obama to Play Bigger Role on Energy, Climate

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman suggested today that President Obama use his leadership abilities to coax climate and energy legislation through the Senate. Friedman said Obama "has always been rather coy when it comes to when and how much he will personally push an energy/climate bill that would fix a price on carbon-emitting fuels. Without that price signal, you will never get sustained consumer demand for, or sustained private investment in, clean-power technologies. All you will get are hobbies."

Friedman wrote that he would like Obama to say: "Yes, if we pass this energy legislation, a small price on carbon will likely show up on your gasoline or electricity bill. I'm not going to lie. But it is an investment that will pay off in so many ways. It will spur innovation in energy efficiency that will actually lower the total amount you pay for driving, heating or cooling. It will reduce carbon pollution in the air we breathe and make us healthier as a country. It will reduce the money we are sending to nations that crush democracy and promote intolerance. It will strengthen the dollar. It will make us more energy secure, environmentally secure and strategically secure."

L.A. Times Examines Efforts to Craft Senate Compromise on Climate

The Los Angeles Times today examined how Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, has emerged as a key player in the determination by the Senate to come up with an acceptable climate bill that "would put new limits on greenhouse gas emissions and spur production of renewable energy." Wrote the Times: "Surprising as it may seem, the heart of those senators' strategy is to woo special interests--major electric utilities, steel and cement producers, farmers and coal and oil companies."

Brown was quoted as saying: "I know, it doesn't sound like me. I really do think this is different. I think people understand that if industry doesn't--if this doesn't work for them, if this doesn't keep them in business ... it hurts the country."

For example, the Times noted: "In the case of efforts to craft a climate bill, business support is deemed so crucial that, before meeting with President Obama and some swing-vote senators at the White House last week, the bill's architects sat down with a group of industry lobbyists ... . In blunt terms, the senators asked the lobbyists what the bill needed to say to receive industry backing."