What Ever Happened to the Climate Bill?

Clean energy legislation -- already approved by the U.S. House -- battles for Senate attention

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, is one of more than a dozen swing votes needed to pass a climate bill this year. To get her off the fence and into the climate bill camp, Sen. Barbara Boxer wanted to take Stabenow into the wilds of Alaska this summer, to show her first-hand the devastation wrought by warmer temperatures -- drying wetlands, dying forests, disappearing glaciers and more.

But the tour never happened. Sen. Ted Kennedy's death forced Boxer and her colleagues to cancel the trip to attend his memorial service. Stabenow remains on the fence.

The trip cancellation was yet another disappointment for advocates of climate change legislation, which has become the hapless victim of unrelated delays and deviations all summer.

Kennedy's passing, the protracted health care debate, even Sen. John Kerry's hip surgery have pushed back committee debates and a floor vote -- which advocates had hoped would come in September -- to sometime later this fall. Kerry, for instance, chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of six committees that claim some jurisdiction over climate legislation, and is co-authoring the Senate version of a climate bill with Boxer, so his input was essential.

Now, as President Obama prepares to address the United Nations on Tuesday and assure the world that the United States is getting serious about climate change in advance of important December talks in Copenhagen, some backers fear that consideration of a bill by the full Senate will slip to next year -- into the witch's brew of midterm election politics when little significant work gets done.

"The Senate is a lot about time management. You have to take into account how much time your priorities take," said Paul Bledsoe, director of communications and strategy for the National Commission on Energy Policy. "It looks like we could be running out of time to get Senate floor consideration before Copenhagen."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stoked those fears last week when he told reporters that health care and regulatory reform may dominate the rest of this year's session, meaning there would likely be no time for clean energy legislation.

A delay could embarrass the Obama administration. Obama has said that he wants the U.S. delegation to show up at Copenhagen with legislation that has passed both chambers of Congress. The first half of that goal was achieved in June with narrow passage of cap-and-trade legislation by the U.S. House, but the Senate has yet to act on that bill or consider its own version.

Here are three factors that could stand in the way of a climate bill's passage in the Senate this year - and three things that might help it succeed:

OBSTACLES

Health care reform: Until Senate leaders deal with Obama's No. 1 domestic priority, which currently dominates the Senate schedule and the national conversation, nothing else will get done. Success would benefit the rest of the president's agenda, giving him momentum and prodding reluctant Democrats into backing the administration on climate change. A failure on health care could give moderates more reason to abandon the president while seeking to shore up their own re-election bids.

Annual appropriations bills: The Senate still needs to pass a bevy of spending bills to fund the government for the coming year. Each of these eats up time in committees and on the Senate floor. At some point, the climate bill may simply get crowded out of the schedule because other legislation just can't wait.

Fence-sitting Democrats: Michigan's Stabenow and at least nine other Rust Belt Democrats are worried that climate change legislation will raise costs in the manufacturing sector and send jobs overseas. Other Democrats are worried about the cost of the bill. Others want to drop the cap-and-trade provisions altogether.

If the House bill is any guide, wavering senators can extract a high price for their vote. Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat from rural Virginia, brokered a deal that gave the coal industry billions of dollars in concessions. Senate Democrats may be forced to make similar unsavory agreements to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.

BRIGHT SPOTS

EPA action: In gathering votes, Democratic leaders have gotten help from an unlikely source: John Roberts' Supreme Court. Two years ago, the court ruled 5-4 that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The agency has recently been taking steps to that end.

The EPA action allows climate bill backers to use a carrot-and-stick approach, suggesting that their undecided colleagues get involved in crafting a compromise bill to address greenhouse emissions -- or risk having the EPA do it without their input.

"It's either act, or have the White House act," said Daniel Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress. "That will make the choice clearer for members of the Senate

Green lobbying: Environmentalists and their allies recently launched their biggest lobbying push yet on climate change. The Clean Energy Works Campaign allots a reported $20 million for advertising outside the Beltway, making the fundamental argument that climate legislation will create new jobs in the clean energy sector and boost the U.S. economy while reducing greenhouse gas pollution.

The campaign aims to counter a rival assault from a pair of business groups, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Federation of Independent Business, which ran ads in 13 states denouncing a cap-and-trade system as a "huge tax on energy."

New York climate meeting: The president will have a chance to reframe and reinvigorate the climate debate on Tuesday when he addresses a one-day climate conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York -- part of the run-up to Copenhagen.

In an approach somewhat reminiscent of his recent health care speech before a joint session of Congress, Obama will try to jumpstart progress with a speech to the nation. In this case, he will also be speaking to the international community, walking a tightrope between reassuring skittish swing-vote Democrats at home and demonstrating abroad that he is still serious about climate change.

"There are no stages as big as when the president of the United States addresses the world," said Jeremy Symons, a senior vice president at the National Wildlife Federation. "It's the president stepping out in a big way. It should take this fight to the next level.

"The time to do it is right now. That's our game plan."