Senate Watch: Bayh, Bingaman, Cardin, Dorgan, Feinstein, Graham, Kerry, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lugar, McCain, Murkowski, Nelson, Snowe, Udall, Voinovich, Webb
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)E&E News You ask, is there a way? The answer is, I don’t know. But at a time of economic anxiety, it will be more difficult. Without the global cooperation from China, India and elsewhere, it just makes it that much harder.
E&E News I want to see us pass what we’ve been able to report out of committee. If we’re able to pass more, that’s great too.
Ben Cardin (D-Md.)E&E News I don’t think there’s any discussion of putting that [a renewable energy standard] into a jobs package as such. What they’re trying to do with this jobs package is identify things that will create jobs in 2010. And it’s harder to make the case this will create jobs in 2010. It’s very good policy, something I strongly support, but I think we may have to do it as part of an energy bill.
Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)E&E News There’s going to be some significant compromises that are going to have to be made if we’re going to get an energy bill done. We knew it two weeks ago. We knew it last week. We know it this week. This is nothing new. We knew we’d not be able to get a major energy bill done without some significant change. My expectation, if we succeed, there’ll be strong support for what we do from the environmental community. Will it be universal? I doubt it. But if we’re going to be able to get a bill done, there are compromises that are going to have to be made, and some groups are not going to be happy about it. Our goal is to make sure we reduce greenhouse gas emissions. There’s different ways you can accomplish that.
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)E&E News Well, I hope we have significant investment for that type of funding [clean energy], but we will have to wait and see [what happens under a spending freeze].
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)E&E News I don’t think anybody has given up on cap and trade. I think big, comprehensive bills are very difficult to do in this environment, regardless of what it is. I tend to be an incrementalist. I say do what you can do, when you can do it. Because everything is opportunity and timing. If you have both, you can get it done. If you have only one, it’s very difficult to get it done.
John Kerry (D-Mass.)E&E News I think you’ve got to price carbon. You can have a hybrid system of emission controls and taxes.
E&E News We’re just going to keep everything on the table and not putting out a framework at this point. Some people have mentioned different sectoral approaches, we’re looking at that. We’re looking at everything. What we want to do is make sure that we get the job done. And we’re not wedded to any one way of trying to do that, so we’re looking at options.
E&E News There’s automatically going to be some small component in terms of the green jobs piece of this. That’s good. That’s fine. But I think the larger pieces require a more comprehensive approach to energy.
E&E News If it [Senate jobs bill] were to reach too far, it could have an impact, but I don’t think it is. And I think that’s been taken into consideration. I think it’s not a sufficiently broad enough piece that it has the ability to satisfy what needs to be done on the full energy front. There’s an immediate reaction to an election, but the reality is this issue isn’t going away. We have to deal with energy independence. We have to create jobs. We have to reduce pollution. That’s what we’re talking about. And there’s a point of reckoning at some point. ... I hope it’s going to be in the next months. And if it’s not, it will happen. Because it’s inevitable, at some point, we have to deal with this.
Asked if he was backing away from the climate bill’s prospects this year No, no, no, no, I’m just trying to be, I don’t want to promise anything. But it’s on the schedule for this year, and we’re on target.
Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.)E&E News I am for a legislative solution, not a rulemaking, not an unaccountable rulemaking process. I’m for an accountable legislative process to achieve that, and I’d be open to some modification of cap and trade that really recognizes the importance of the refining industry here. Because we’re going to have a supply shortage of oil and refined products. We need to do it all. We need to be producing more and particularly more natural gas. I think there’s a way forward, but it’s most certainly going to be bipartisan, and it’s most certainly going to be from the center out.
Richard Lugar (R-Ind.)E&E News My approach here is we really must do something this year. The two problems of American energy dependence and global warming will only get worse. We’ve just got to do the most we can. I’m not being rigid or ideological about it. So anybody who wants to try to make the problem better, it’s worth considering. . . . You ask about the power sector, to do that alone wouldn’t be my first choice, but if it’s all we can do in the end, I’d consider it, sure. . . . We assume we have Collins and Snowe.
John McCain (R-Ariz.)E&E News [A utility-only cap does] Not necessarily [have a better chance of passing], and I’ve not really advocated that. I hypothetically talked about a lot of things, as I’m sure he has.
Lisa Murkwoski (R-Alaska)E&E News waiting for Obama to invite him to talk energy He hasn’t for the past year, but you can always hope.
E&E News I’m always hesitant to use a good bill for something with added baggage. We passed a good energy bill out of committee, a bipartisan energy bill, months and months ago. Nobody paid any attention to it. It just didn’t exist. And now, all of a sudden, they need something.
E&E News We’re going to look to the situation on the ground if we’re in the midst of just pulling something out of the air in regulatory reform—I’m not inclined to just interrupt the legislative process just to interrupt the legislative process. I think we will be looking for the appropriate time.
bq.”We do believe we’ll have Snowe and Collins’ votes; we just don’t have their co-sponsorship,” Murkowski spokesman Dillon said.
Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)E&E News I’d hope energy policy would still be alive and well. I’d hope it can have strong, bipartisan support, at least that’s what I’m hoping. . . . I want to see what the legislation does. I said I can support cap. I have trouble with cap and trade, the trade part of it. So if it’s cap and trade, watered down, and it’s only the trade watered down, that won’t satisfy me.
Olympia Snowe (R-Maine)E&E News I think there are an awful lot of my colleagues that are not anti the EPA, and I’m not anti the EPA; what I am against is the EPA thinking they’re in a position to look over Congress’ shoulder and deciding whether we’re moving fast enough for them. That isn’t the relationship under the Constitution.
Mark Udall (D-Colo.)E&E News Climate change is a key issue. But right now, there are so many factors affecting business’ ability to create jobs or preserve jobs that we have to factor that into the equation. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not dismissing, because I’ve been a leader on that effort in the past, but I also think we have to recognize what can we do and what’s the art of the possible.
George Voinovich (R-Ohio)E&E News Government should live by the same budgeting rules that hardworking Colorado families follow every day.
E&E News Voinovich said his staff are working on an analysis of limiting emissions just on power plants. Once finished, he said he would meet with Kerry “and just see if there’s any area where something can be done.”
Jim Webb (D-Va.)My initial feeling … is that we ought to look at the energy bill, which is pretty bipartisan, and look at that in terms of how it could be enhanced to achieve some real reductions in emissions.
E&E News I’m very skeptical of cap-and-trade as a concept.