Hill Heat

An E&E News piece on how House Energy and Commerce members are acting as whips for the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454) is replete with quotations that tell the story of how negotiations on the bill will proceed.

Committee members

Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.):

We’re just savoring the victory and right now I love every provision in that bill. But I don’t love it so much that I wouldn’t want to hear what other people have to say about it, and learn more and examine other alternatives that might do better.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.):

Congress is a stimulus response institution. And nothing is more stimulating that millions of Americans who want a change with energy. We’re seeing the beginning of it here.

Rep. Diane DeGette (D-Colo.):

We really need to be emissaries to the caucus, talking to them about how we were able to find some good common ground, and how it’s a good bill.

Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), on EPA biofuels regulations and climate legislation:

Many people tend to confuse the concerns created by both mechanisms. I’m trying to be that broker in between who have legitimate concerns about the indirect land-use implications, especially for my state, as a huge proponent of biofuels, at the same time, recognizing the obligation to the future of this country to move forward with this climate and energy bill.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.):

I’m still learning the legislation. There’s so much to comprehend. And the manager’s amendment just dropped this week. There’s a lot of details in there we don’t fully understand. Hopefully, I can be a representative of leadership and try to persuade members to vote for it. That’s my duty as a whip.

Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.):

I’ve done my job as a member of the committee. I’m glad to answer any questions members have about what the Energy and Commerce Committee has done. Beyond that, I’m going to be a spectator like everyone else, and we’ll see what happens after all the committees do their work and what the bill looks like and we’ll go from there.

Agriculture Committee

House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.):

If they don’t want to change it, then they’ll have to find the votes some other place. In my district, a ‘no’ vote would be a good vote.

Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.):

I don’t think [Peterson] is bluffing. He has got the support he says he has.

Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.):

I think of the whole cap-and-trade idea as a Ponzi scheme. I don’t like the idea that one factory is cleaner than it has to be so that another a factory is dirtier than it should be, because historically that factory that’s dirtier than it should be ends up in the South. ... If the vote was today, I’d vote ‘no.’

Taylor, on having breakfast with Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.):

He was explaining how he’d become a convert. I’ll just leave it at that. He did not try to twist my arm or influence my vote in any way.

Other Democrats

House Democratic Caucus Committee Chairman John Larson (D-Conn.):

You need the votes of the entire caucus. But I think the willingness for everyone to work and understand the fragility of this is helpful, and I think we’ll get a bill. We’ve got to bring everybody together, and there’s nobody better than that than Nancy Pelosi.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the House Education and Labor Committee:

That’s the process we go through on every bill. The speaker insists you constantly widen the circle and enlarge it so you take in these interests, so when the bill is finished, people will speak up, organizations will speak up.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.):

I don’t care what restrictions we put on it, we do not want to enable Wall Street hedge funds, derivative traders and others to create another bubble and take control of our carbon markets. Cap? Fine. Regulate? Great. Trade? No.

Republicans

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.):

As this bill is now out there in the public domain, I think people will understand the extraordinary cost that this will impose to business and working families. And at the end of the day, that will be what will kill this bill.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.):

I actually think it may have been a mistake for the Energy and Commerce Committee to mark this bill up and then send its members home because a lot of them have taken votes that are not going to be easy votes to explain in their districts. And their experience will work against getting people who aren’t on the committee to want to go down the same path.