The Washington Post reported today:
President Obama and Vice President Biden urged a group of House Democrats at a White House meeting this morning to move forward with climate-change legislation that has become a subject of controversy among some Democrats and threatened to stall health-care reform.
At the same time, E&E News PM (subs. req’d) reported:
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said today that he will bypass regular order on a major climate change and energy bill and mark up the legislation before the entire 59-member panel.
At this point, I don’t have confirmation for the second story, but it is obviously one strategy for moving the bill along while still giving time for intra-party negotiation.
There does seem to be movement on the bill and the Obama-Biden visit may have helped:
“We are exchanging concepts and where we reach agreement, we’re working on language,” said Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), a lead negotiator for the moderate Democrats.
Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) said Democratic talks had picked up in recent days, and he predicted a proposal from committee leaders to the wavering moderates within days, if not hours. “I discern some movement,” Butterfield said.
The upbeat prognosis for the House climate talks came shortly after a roughly 90-minute White House meeting with Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. According to several lawmakers at the session, Obama urged the Democrats to reach consensus on the issue by Memorial Day so that the committee can turn its attention to health care reform in June.
“He didn’t want to see this slip by the wayside,” said Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.). “He wants us to keep working.”
Democrats said Obama was well briefed on the details and complexities of the climate issue. “He has mastered the details,” Boucher said.
Yet, they also said the president wants the committee members to work through the sticking points themselves. “He wants us to try to work out our bill, and he’s giving us a lot of latitude to do that,” Waxman said.
More detail on the visit:
Democratic Reps. Jay Inslee (Wash.) and Doris Matsui (Calif.), who both attended the meeting, said the president emphasized the historic nature of the climate bill.
“He told us, sometimes we do things of real impact. And none of us would want to look back in twenty to thirty years and think we had punted on something of a historic nature,” Inslee said….
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs read a synopsis of the meeting at his daily briefing this afternoon. “The President outlined core principles that should guide the energy legislation as the Committee finalizes it,” Gibbs said. “The President believes that consumers and communities should be compensated if, during the transition period, there are any additional costs associated with reducing carbon emissions. He believes there should be predictability and certainty in the market, so that entrepreneurs can make major private sector investments in clean energy innovation. He also believes that regional impacts should be taken into account and addressed — and that our trade sensitive industries need to be protected.”
Finally, Obama weighed on the controversial auction vs. allocation issue:
Because of their regional diversity, Obama also suggested that Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee could help propel the entire issue forward — including through the Senate — if they can strike a deal among themselves.
“If we can reach agreement with the coal sector, with the steel, with the auto sector, with the refining sector on our committee, which is very representative of the Congress as a whole, then we believe that’ll be a template for passage in the Senate, as well,” Markey said. “Because the agreements we’ll reach will be the very same agreements that those industry leaders … will be able to represent to senators are the basis for passage of legislation that they can support.”
Obama addressed a key sticking point in negotiations, telling the Democrats that he is open to giving away some of the emission credits for free to industry, a clear shift from last year’s presidential campaign and the administration’s budget proposal in favor of a complete auction of the allowances.
“I wouldn’t say it’s contrary,” Waxman said. “He wants us to get to a point where we’re going to have an auction, and eventually we will get to an auction.”
Any free credits, Waxman added, would not undercut the goals of the legislation.
“It’s going to require during that transition period of decades for the Congress to deal with the cost to consumers, and the cost to different industries and the development of the new technologies,” he said. “We’re trying to be mindful of the regional concerns and the ratepayers, particularly the consumers.”
Kudos to Obama and Biden — and Waxman and Markey — for continuing to move the ball forward.
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This is very encouraging to me. I can sleep better this evening. The more I read about President Obama, the more grateful I am that he won the election. It is important to support him as strongly as possible.
I too am glad to have read this about Pres. Obama’s plans… I hope the climate bill passes, I really think people aren’t taking global warming or rather climate change seriously.
Great discussion on electricity generation costs:
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5354
I am very disappointed about Obama’s statements about allocations. I am glad that this issue is moving forward, but without 100% auction of credits with a significant portion of the revenue stream directed to lower and middle income families as well as to stimulating growth and development in green technology, this bill will not get us where we need to go. Allocation is the keystone of smart c&t policy.
Recirculating auction or tax revenues from the federal government to power consumers is a bad idea. Fraud and abuse will be likely. Why not leave the money with the utilities, since power rates will inevitably go up once the local PUCs get involved?
One way to do this is to provide by legislation, backed by federal supremacy, that current power rates will stay in place notwithstanding local PUCs, and emissions of CO2 and ash from existing point sources, such as power plants, cement plants, and steel plants, will be ratcheted down to zero over 10 years, or some other realistic target. Tax credits to utilities (based on reductions in excess of the annual ratchet targets) will pay for the transition to clean coal and other clean power for the grid. Penalties for emissions in excess of ratchet targets is a future threat.
So instead of paying money up front now, in a reeling economy, for fees or taxes or allocations, utilities will be held mostly harmless in the near future, and so will their customers. The federal government will pay with forgone future tax revenues for the cost per kWh of new technology to achieve the ratchet targets. Bonus credits could reward utilities which pioneer the effort to connect renewables to the grid and to implement clean coal.
A big plus of this plan is that it prevents the bait-and-switch scenario, where cap revenues go to health care or other programs having nothing to do with CO2 emissions.
Before any thing is done on cap and trade, look at real world data. The surface and lower atmosphere temperatures have been decreasing for the last seven to ten years as determined by all four of the major scientific entities that issue such data. The temperature of the ocean and sea level have been steady to falling over the same time period. The Antarctic ice extent is far above the last thirty year average. The Arctic ice extent is at its highest point in the last seven years. President Obama needs to be true to his word and let science decide what is happening rather than those who have a financial interest in cap and trade.
Irrespective of the real nature of climate change, this bill is nothing but a massive wealth transfer and social justice bill. They are taxing one portion of the economy to give handouts to another. They are taxing one portion of the economy to pay for programs not related to climate change (ie health care). This bill is less about climate change and more about generating revenue so that liberals can buy votes well into the future.
If congress really cared about climate change and really wanted to limit the impacts on consumers then they would do a straight carbon tax and put 100% of the money into renewable technology and new R&D.
Furthermore, what many of you who support this legislation fail to realize is that the little handouts that you will get from the liberals may will likely not even offset the increases in the goods your purchase every day. Businesses can pass increased costs on to the consumers with little effort. So when the cost of food, transportation, clothing and housing increase because of this bill, just ask yourself if that $9 you get every 2 weeks from Obama is enough to ensure your family is fed, clothed and cared for.
Russ is right. The problems that W-M is having now are due to its conception as what he describes — a way to pay for health care, etc. with the money raised by pollution auctions. It must have sounded like a stroke of genius at the time, sort of like the Iran-Contra scheme, but in retrospect it looks like a cynical attempt to make fools of those of us who want to do something about the weird world weather problem.
[JR: Huh? None of the money is going for health care or anything like it. You're entering tin foil hat area here.]
Use of auction proceeds is widely reported to be used for universal health care. Do you dispute this reporting?
“Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said energy taxes is an “option” for funding healthcare reform. He also suggested the money could be found from other sources in an interview on CNN.”
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/conrad-open-to-energy-taxes-for-healthcare-reform-2009-03-29.html