The Senate climate legislation process seems to have hit a speed bump the same day the House process did. Greenwire (subs. req’d) reports:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said today that Congress could meet President Obama’s call for passing sweeping energy legislation this year — including a climate cap-and-trade measure — though it might take three bills to do it.

The Nevada Democrat outlined what he sees as a three-pronged strategy for meeting the goals Obama laid out in his speech to Congress last night and said the Senate could pass all the bills by the end of the year.

First comes a clean energy bill, then a transmission bill, then a cap-and-trade. I suppose it is theoretically possible the Senate could pass all three by the end of the year (plus a budget and healthcare and everything else).

But I do think this vindicates my earlier prediction that Obama would not get a bill on his desk this year, since the Senate bill would still have to be reconciled with the House bill and then passed by both houses — and I don’t think that’s terribly easy. But again, I think that is probably a good thing because “Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010.”

Now I do take exception to Greenwire‘s interpretation of what Obama said about timing:

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E&E News PM (subs. req’d) reports:

The House Ways and Means Committee plans to mark up global warming emissions legislation by Memorial Day, setting up a possible turf fight among powerful Democratic committee leaders over one of President Obama’s signature agenda items.

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said he wants to move a climate bill within the next three months and has asked committee members to begin sorting through at least four different legislative proposals that would place a price on greenhouse gas emissions that scientists attribute to global warming.

Rangel’s committee members also are sifting through any jurisdictional issues associated with their climate bills to determine what crossover they may have with the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Rangel’s tax-writing panel is likely to claim jurisdiction over climate legislation that generates revenues for the Treasury, a challenge of sorts for Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) as he produces his own comprehensive energy and climate measure.

Now if this slows things down a bit, I think that is probably a good thing because “Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010.”

We know that while Sen. Reid (D-NV) says he’d like to see a global warming bill on Senate floor “hopefully late this summer,” the Senate bill is also going to go through multiple committees (see “Sen. Boxer makes clear U.S. won’t pass a climate bill this year“). And the Senate bill will probably be quite different from the House bill. So again I just don’t see how Obama gets a bill on his desk this year, which, again, is not necessarily bad.

Here is the rest of the story:
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The Center for Public Integrity has found that “more than 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence federal policy on climate change in the past year,” estimating total expenditures of $90 million. Their comprehensive investigation of climate lobbying discovered that nearly 2,000 of the lobbyists represent corporate interests.

CPI found that the top climate lobbying shop was the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), a coal-industry front group that spent $10.5 million lobbying Congress:

No group exemplifies the sophistication of the current debate more than the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — a new lobbying organization unveiled just weeks before the vote last June on the Warner-Lieberman bill. Representing 48 mining firms, coal-hauling railroads and coal-burning power companies, ACCCE spent $10.5 million lobbying Capitol Hill on climate in 2008 — more than any other organization solely dedicated to the issue. In addition to the group’s president, Steven Miller, a one-time aide to former Democratic Kentucky Gov. Brereton Jones, and vice president Joe Lucas, who was an aide to former Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary, ACCCE has at least 15 outside lobbyists, including former White House Counsel Quinn. The big effort is not surprising, since electricity is the largest single source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and the most carbon-intensive fuel, coal, provides half the nation’s power. But ACCCE’s position is that it supports a mandatory federal program to curb the emissions its own members produce — as long as the policy meets ACCCE’s set of principles for keeping electricity affordable, domestically produced, and reliable. And that means encouraging, in ACCCE’s words, “robust utilization of coal.”

Check out the “The Climate Change Lobby” site, including a searchable database of lobbyists and a sampling of top players.

The story and the scientist behind the remarkable video is here.

Greenwire (subs. req’d) reports:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is proposing a single-stop permitting agency for electricity transmission and renewable energy projects.

The proposed state Energy Department would consolidate permitting efforts divided among at least nine agencies.

Expanding transmission, seen as a key to grid stability and achieving goals of expanding the use of renewable energy, is often hamstrung by bureaucratic red tape and lawsuits. And nowhere are the hurdles higher than in California.

Building a transmission line takes about five to seven years in most states, but it takes 10 to 12 years in California, as in the case of the Sunrise Powerlink, a recently approved line to San Diego that was first proposed in 2001 and will not be built until at least 2012.

Transmission is obviously a key bottleneck for achieving the clean energy transition (see “A smart, green grid is needed to enable a near-term renewable revolution“). Kudos to Arnold for pursuing a one-stop-shop to speed things up. Here’s the rest of the story:

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At Green Home Huddle.

In a “news analysis” column, New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin lumps together global warming denier George Will, Vice President Al Gore, and President Barack Obama for engaging in “hyperbole,” “inaccuracies,” “overstatements,” and “hype.” Gore and Will are “two leaders of their tribes waving the tribal flag,” said David Ropeik, a “consultant on risk communication who teaches at Harvard University.” Communications professor Matthew Nisbet complained that criticism of George Will “only serves to draw attention to his claims” and “reinforces the false narrative” that “the mainstream press are seeking to censor rival scientific evidence and views.”

Revkin’s article, “In Climate Debate, Exaggeration Is a Pitfall,” fails on several fronts:

Revkin Is Attacking Gore For Trusting The New York Times. In a February appearance before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Vice President Al Gore included a chart displaying a catastrophic rise in weather-related disasters. Andrew Revkin accused Gore of misrepresenting the data and of “inaccuracies and overstatements.” The chart was constructed in 2008 by New York Times visual op-ed columnist Charles M. Blow, who blamed manmade global warming for the rise. [NYT, 5/31/08] [AAAS, 2/15/09]

David Ropeik Is A Public-Relations Expert For The Bush Administration And Top Corporate Polluters. Revkin quotes David Ropeik, a “consultant on risk communication who teaches at Harvard University,” to paint Al Gore and George Will as equivalently “polarizing figures.” Ropeik is in fact a former television reporter whose public relations company’s website promotes “media training” and “risk communication” for clients like the Bush White House, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Entergy Power Corporation, the Edison Electric Institute,and Foundation Coal Company. Although he used to work at the Exxon-funded Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, Ropeik’s current association with Harvard University is limited to a position at the Harvard Extension School. [Ropeik & Associates: Background, Services, Clients]

Revkin Cites A Paper’s Argument Without Disclosing The Paper Cites Revkin. Revkin writes, “In a paper being published in the March-April edition of the journal Environment, Matthew C. Nisbet, a professor of communications at American University, said Mr. Gore’s approach, focusing on language of crisis and catastrophe, could actually be serving the other side in the fight.” Revkin fails to disclose that Nisbet’s paper relies on Revkin himself to support that argument: “Andrew Revkin, who has covered climate change for nearly 20 years for the New York Times, argues these claims are effectively countered by critics, such as Inhofe, as liberal ‘alarmism,’ since the error bars of uncertainty for each of the climate impacts are much wider than the general link between human activities and global warming.” [Environment, 3/09]

Andrew Revkin genuinely believes that discussion of the real and present danger of climate-related catastrophes is counterproductive to combating global warming. Unfortunately, motivated by that belief, he presented misleading, distorted attacks on political leaders that were backed by commentary from people like David Ropeik, a consultant to the Bush administration and top corporate polluters, and Roger Pielke, Jr., who has testified at the request of Republicans about the politicization of science, written for the Cato Institute, and whose attacks on climate scientists have been repeatedly cited by Marc Morano’s right-wing climate denial machine.

Revkin’s piece on the reality of climate science fails to quote a single climate scientist. Fortunately, he put email correspondence from climate scientist Richard C. J. Somerville in the comment section of his blog. Somerville is scathing, saying that Revkin’s depiction of Gore and Will as equally “guilty” misleaders “doesn’t square with the facts“:

It’s a false dichotomy, and I doubt you could find well-regarded climate scientists who would agree with your framing. Gore is imperfect here and there. Will is just 100% plain dead wrong throughout. There’s a huge qualitative difference between them, and your readers deserve to hear that from you.

Andrew Revkin can be reached at arevkin@nytimes.com, public editor Clark Hoyt at public@nytimes.com, and national editor Suzanne Daley at national@nytimes.com.

[updat

UPDATE: Wonk Room has an excellent critique of the Revkin piece here where he points out, among other things, that “Revkin Cites A Paper’s Argument Without Disclosing The Paper Cites Revkin”! I have also made some changes in word choice that I explain below.

The lead climate reporter for the New York Times, Andy Revkin, remains stuck in the he-said she-said school of climate journalism that typifies everything wrong with the traditional media’s coverage of the issue of the century.

Indeed, if we were to apply his analysis to his own work, then it would be fair to say that there is no difference between Andy Revkin and George Will – especially since Revkin altered a key word in a major report — he exaggerated — to make his case against Gore stronger.

[Note to Andy: As I reread this, I STILL really think you need to make a correction/retraction.]

His latest “News Analysis” piece, “In Debate on Climate Change, Exaggeration Is a Common Pitfall,” manages to equate the recent 99.5% disinformation-filled (and widely debunked) op-ed by George Will — that Will and the Washington Post still stand by some 10 days later (see here) — with the 99.5% accurate, science-based (and Nobel-Prize winning) talk/slideshow that Gore has developed over the decades, and which, when it was pointed out he slightly overstated what could be said about one slide, Gore quickly pulled it.

Apparently, to Revkin, if during an extended discussion about climate-related issues you make a single statement that — while not provably incorrect — is not 100% backed up by the scientific literature you cite, you are no different then someone who just repeats huge amounts of long-debunked disinformation.

So let’s apply that to Revkin. A year ago, he wrote an article that helped sell the “global cooling” meme. It had a chart labeled “An Unusually Cold Winter,” when in fact, as I pointed out that “January was the 31st warmest on record” since 1880 (see “Media enable denier spin 1: A (sort of) cold January doesn’t mean climate stopped warming“). Does that story make Andy no different than Will?

[As a telling aside, Andy wrote a comment to that post: "To have my story lumped in with a quick blog post that did cite some of the spin as fact is neither accurate nor useful." Gosh, Andy, you don't like your thoughtful, though partially mistaken, piece "lumped in" with some "spin." I guess people who live in green houses shouldn't throw stones. You are right, though, lumping Gore in with Will is neither accurate nor useful.]

And just to be clear here, this is hardly the only misstatement Andy has made. As I detail here, Andy wrote in a different story:

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Not quite the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Climate Change (see “MIT joins climate realists, doubles its projection of global warming by 2100 to 5.1°C“) and not quite the UK’s Met Office (see “Hadley Center: Catastrophic 5-7°C warming by 2100 on current emissions path“).

But I think he gets more readers.

What’s really funny is that a standard slide I use (see video here) compares the large and growing U.S. funding for health R&D with the small and (until recently) shrinking energy R&D, to which I comment: “We may not solve the global warming problem, but at least we’ll live long enough to see how screwed we are.”

Perhaps I need a new category, “gallows humor.”