Bob Bennett (R-Utah)
E&E News This administration talks a good fight when it comes to wanting to increase our production of oil and gas… But every time they get a chance to back that up with dollars, they don’t.
Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)
Politico We can’t let the Chinese corner the market on wind turbines and solar panels.
Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)
E&E News If you ask somebody who believes fervently in cap and trade and a lower carbon future, ‘What would you specifically do to achieve that?’ they’d talk about the very things we’ve put in this energy bill.
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)
E&E News I would support it [funding GHG regulation]… There’s no question about greenhouse gas in my mind.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)
Politico If you take some of the green stuff out, some of the goodies, and put it in the jobs bill, you’re hurting the idea of having an energy package that would attract support.
Mother Jones I’m not going to ask the environmental community to accept a compromise that doesn’t in a serious way deal with our carbon pollution problems… You’ll get some votes for a comprehensive package that you wouldn’t get for stand-alone proposals… If we can make the energy piece attractive enough for Republicans, there’s going to be more than a handful that would agree to emissions controls.
Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)
E&E News I think cap and trade has a long road here obviously. And there’s a lot of good initiatives on energy policy that are on a shorter track and will hopefully be pursued aggressively… I think it’s more logical to focus on those things we can do in the short term.
James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
E&E News Until such time as the lawsuits are filed … there may not be anything to do [regulating GHGs]… And so why fund something that doesn’t exist? That, in my opinion, is premature.”
John Kerry (D-Mass.)
E&E News While today he’s acknowledged that some want to go the path of least resistance, he made equally clear that’s not his administration’s position… It’s accurate that we’re still working on precisely what the carbon pricing mechanism and what shape it will take… It might be a hybrid. It might be one component. There may be some compromise. We have to look at that very closely. We know we have to price carbon, and that’s essential… I think we’ve moved very significantly on the nuclear piece, on the energy title itself, on the alternative renewables, on natural gas, on some of the offset pieces… I think we’re making a lot of progress… I don’t want to start throwing out little nibbles and pieces of one title or another… I don’t think it serves us well. I think we need to treat this as a package. Nothing’s agreed to until we’ve got everything agreed to.
Mother Jones We’re not stuck on one idea. We’re looking for a way to come at this that gets the job done, but the job remains the same: addressing the real urgency of climate change… There are any number of ways of skinning this cat.
Mary Landrieu (D-La.)
Politico We can use that bill [the energy committee package] and combine it with parts of the jobs package and really lay out a framework to get America working again… I think energy is the best place we could go right now to create jobs.
E&E News It is unfortunate that the administration has chosen to escalate the cost of producing energy in Americ. Raising the costs of domestically produced energy only accelerates our dependence on lower-cost foreign oil.
Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Politico I’m always hesitant to use a good bill to carry things that are added baggage… If the jobs bill is added baggage, you’re not going to find me so supportive of it.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
E&E News He [Obama] has not funded [renewables] to that degree… Construction of new nuclear power may well be the most expensive way to go.