Hill Heat

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.

From the Wonk Room.

“Strong earnings from Exxon Mobil and bullish comments from coal analysts boosted the energy sector Monday” as climate negotiators say a global deal on climate change in 2010 is “all but impossible.”

“At a time when our country is struggling with a deep economic recession, the last thing I want the EPA to do is start regulating greenhouse gases without specific direction from Congress,” Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) said about the EPA budget plan that allocates $56 million for global warming regulation.

Indiana officials will not require insurance companies to complete a nationally approved climate risk survey, because it seems to advance a “politically driven agenda,” said Doug Webber, the state’s acting insurance commissioner.

Senators respond to the president’s budget, which does not assume any revenues from a cap-and-trade system, and allocates $56 million to the EPA for the implementation of greenhouse gas regulations.

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.

Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)

E&E News I would support it [budget proposal for EPA greenhouse gas regulation]. There’s no question about greenhouse gas in my mind.

Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

Politico We know the moving parts and getting the coalitions put together is what we’re working on. I’m pretty optimistic, quite frankly.

James Inhofe (R-Okla.)

E&E News Until such time as the lawsuits are filed … there may not be anything to do [to regulate greenhouse gases]. And so why fund something that doesn’t exist? That, in my opinion, is premature.

John Kerry (D-Mass.)

E&E News The White House is taking the right approach in calling for deficit-neutral legislation to reduce carbon emissions in the 2011 budget. As we continue to finalize legislation, it makes sense to avoid making revenue assumptions other than to specify that pollution reduction revenues should be used for climate-related purposes.

Mary Landrieu (D-La.)

E&E News It is unfortunate that the administration has chosen to escalate the cost of producing energy in America. Raising the costs of domestically produced energy only accelerates our dependence on lower-cost foreign oil.

Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.)

E&E News I think to base a budget upon the passage of an economy wide cap and trade this year would be a very risky bet. It’s hard for me to imagine economy wide cap and trade passing the Senate in 2010.

John Barrasso (R-Wyo.)

E&E News Clearly, the sentiment of the Senate is that’s [cap-and-trade] not going to be something that’s going to pass.

Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.)

E&E News That’s [cap and trade] a less reliable source of revenue than they might have thought it was a year ago.”

Tom Carper (D-Del.)

E&E News The best thing about reducing energy use is that it’s not just good for the environment—it saves money, too.

John Kerry (D-Mass.)

E&E News See, what happened last time was it [cap-and-trade] went into the federal Treasury and it was unaccounted for… That set off a lot of alarm bells with people. That’s not what it’s meant to be, and that’s not what’s going to happen… I’m not ruling anything out, but I’m not suggesting anyone has ever talked about that right now… It’s not been a conversation and nobody has made that suggestion, and we hope we’re going to get 60 votes for this or more.

Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)

E&E News This [the administration’s loan guarantee pledge] is a good first step toward expanding our use of clean nuclear energy. The next step for the administration is to ensure that these loan guarantees are actually awarded in a timely manner.

Evan Bayh (D-Ind.)

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.

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

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.

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.

Ben Cardin (D-Md.)

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.

Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)

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].

Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)

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.

Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

E&E News I think you’ve got to price carbon. You can have a hybrid system of emission controls and taxes.

John Kerry (D-Mass.)

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.

Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

E&E News If enacted today, CEDA can create countless new jobs this year in new companies across the country by helping breakthrough clean energy technologies get introduced into U.S. markets and expanded as quickly as possible. CEDA would facilitate tens of billions of dollars in new investment in entrepreneurial companies with innovative technologies by giving investors the confidence that financing will be available later for first commercial-scale deployment. This is critical in helping emerging clean tech companies grow in an environment that is highly capital intensive, making our economy more competitive, and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)

E&E News This is a new low, in my humble opinion. [The resolution is an] unprecedented move by a United States senator and her co-sponsors to overturn a health finding made by health experts and scientific experts in order to stand with the special interests. We know we’ve got to find 60 votes, but we also know we cannot and must not repeal a scientific health finding.

Ben Cardin (D-Md.)

E&E News There are provisions that are more difficult for us to accept if they’re not part of a comprehensive bill. In a broader package I am more understanding of some of the other regional concerns.

Robert Casey (D-Penn.)

E&E Neews It’s going to be very hard to do something on that [climate] in the next weeks and months. And after that, I can’t tell. But we have to have substantive strategies on job creation.

Bob Corker (R-Tenn.)

E&E News You’re [Secretary Chu] slow-walking things that are proven, and wanting to spend lots of money on things that are unproven. It makes me less trustful of the department.

Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.)

E&E News It [the energy committee bill] will move us in the direction of a lower-carbon future. Offshore drilling is a carrot. It’s a carrot that’s already been consumed.

E&E News My guess is that it probably wouldn’t meet with favor when it hits the White House, if it ever passes the House and the Senate.

Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

E&E News I can get every Republican for an energy independence bill, OK? But there are not 60 votes. You’re not going to get the nuclear power provisions you want unless you do something on emission controls.

E&E News I’ve got a lot of Republicans who are really excited about the energy part. What I’m telling them, and what I’m telling y’all, if you want energy independence, the way to get there is through cleaning up the air, and we’ll see what happens.

E&E News If you vote to pre-empt the EPA, which I’m willing to do, I think there’s a burden on you as a U.S. senator to deal with the issue.

John Kerry (D-Mass.)

E&E News It’s [the Murkowski resolution] not going to affect what we’re doing one way or another.

E&E News We certainly had a good discussion on the issue [with the White House]. And I think they’re committed to moving forward, as are we. We’re already working on text,” Kerry said. “We’re putting a bill together. ... If you give us just a few days here, we’ll be ready to give you a little update. We feel very good about where we are.

Mary Landrieu (D-La.)

E&E News The industries that I represent want the sharpest, most carefully crafted tools available, and I don’t think that can be achieved using a Clean Air Act that wasn’t designed for that purpose.

Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) announced today she is co-sponsoring Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) resolution of disapproval to block regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, in a statement entitled “Lincoln Signs on to Resolution Blocking Heavy-Handed EPA Regulation” :

Washington – U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, issued the following statement today announcing her support for legislation to block efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Lincoln agreed to cosponsor a resolution of disapproval to be introduced by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

“I am very concerned about the burden that EPA regulation of carbon emissions could put on our economy and have questions about the actual benefit EPA regulations would have on the environment. Heavy-handed EPA regulation, as well as the current cap and trade bills in Congress, will cost us jobs and put us at an even greater competitive disadvantage to China, India and others.

“We can make immediate gains to reduce carbon emissions by sending the President bipartisan clean energy legislation produced by the Senate Energy Committee. This legislation, coupled with energy tax incentives, will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and incentivize renewable energy, all while improving the environment and creating much-needed jobs.

“We must focus on cutting the deficit, creating jobs and getting the economy back on track. Arkansans, and the American public, want Congress to take a breath, slow down, and thoughtfully come up with energy policy that makes common sense and will help grow our economy.”

Robert Bennett (R-Utah)

E&E News I don’t think they got anything in Copenhagen that encourages anyone. Except Jim Inhofe.

Kit Bond (R-Mo.)

E&E News on developing countries: They are going to continue to develop the energy they need. They’re not fools.

Bob Casey (D-Penn.)

Politico The reality for states like Pennsylvania is, even as we move forward with any kind of climate change legislation, there are going to be cost impacts. We want to make sure we’re not adding yet another cost impact that other countries don’t have to shoulder.

Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)

The Hill We’re going to move forward on it. I hope we can get it done this coming year.

Politico We have a responsibility to deal with this issue. We have to acknowledge the obvious. China, one of our great competitors in the world, is taking the green leap forward, as they say. They are committing themselves to this new energy-efficient economy, and they are building companies even in the United States that will make those products. Will the United States stand by the sidelines or will we be part of this leap forward? I don’t want to lose those jobs.

Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.)

The Hill I want to work with this administration, but this healthcare proposal has made it very hard for Republicans to sit down at the table with these guys, because of the way they have run over us. But at the end of the day we have more problems than just healthcare.

I want to help solve hard problems, but this healthcare bill has made a hard problem worse.

When [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez got a standing ovation in Copenhagen it made me sick to my stomach, but the only way he is relevant is because of the oil revenues.

I think in many ways it is going to be seen as ineffective, but it is some transparency that we don’t have today.

Politico If we don’t do it by then [pass legislation by spring], we’ll have a hard time doing it.

James Inhofe (R-Okla.)

E&E News Speed things along? You’ve got to be kidding me, surely you jest. ... Nothing was done, another total failure, just like all the rest of them.

Ted Kaufman (D-Del.)

Politico If China will not let us verify, we’re going to have a heck of a time here. An agreement’s no good if you can’t verify.

John Kerry (D-Mass.)

Politico Clearly, senators and congressmen were not going to do something if other people are not going to do something — so that’s a start. There’s still going to be people who resist, there’s still going to be naysayers, there’s still going to be people who doubt the science.

E&E News Now the proof will be in our willingness to do some things we need to do, and assuming we step up, I think that’s going to set an example to a lot of other countries. I think you had to have some deal where the major emitters are beginning to reduce. Having China at the table was the most critical thing because most of our colleagues are saying, ‘Well what about China? What about China? If they don’t do it, it won’t make any difference.’ The less developed countries, the truly less developed countries barely emit. And so we have some time to work with them to bring them to the table.

In this official transcript of a briefing delivered on Air Force One on the way back from Copenhagen, Denmark to Washington, D.C., a senior administration official (evidently Press Secretary Robert Gibbs) describes the unusual process President Obama took to craft the Copenhagen Accord with the leaders of China, India, Brazil, and South Africa at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change.

11:46 P.M. CET

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: So I just want to make sure everybody is cool with the rules here. We’re going to have probably a couple of these on this flight. What I want to do though, on background as a senior administration official, I want to go through a series of events that led up to the President going into what we had set up as a bilateral meeting with Premier Wen. So I just want to get—I want everyone to be clear on this set of events. So let me go through this timeline and then we can go through questions. And bear with me because I sometimes can’t even read my own writing.

At the first bilateral meeting with Premier Wen, the President, as we have done over the past several days, was pushing quite hard on transparency language. And we had given some transparency language to them and negotiators on our side had gone to work with their side on the notion of transparency.

Q The language was before the meeting, though? Was given to them before the meeting?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I’m sorry, say again.

Q When you said, “we had given language to them,” you meant before their bilat?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: This was during the bilat. So this was at the end of the bilat and the President says to Wen that he thinks our negotiators should get together, spend about an hour seeing if we can make some progress – because in all honesty, rhetorically, we were hearing what we wanted to hear about steps that they were willing to take on transparency, but wanted to make sure that we would have something to agree on that wasn’t just them agreeing to agree.

So the President at that point – you guys will have some times in your email to go through – but remember there comes a point in which you should have gotten from Kevin Lewis, via an update from me, that says the President has gone to the multilateral meeting and representing the Chinese was their climate change ambassador in the ministry of foreign affairs, who was in this meeting – to put it, I guess, accurately – as to speak for the entire Chinese government.

It’s at this point that the President, before our Medvedev bilateral, the President said to staff, I don’t want to mess around with this anymore, I want to just talk with Premier Wen. So we were trying to do that before the Medvedev bilat. Our advance team called their advance team to try to set this meeting up, and in all honesty make one more chance, make one more run at getting something done. The Chinese say they need to call our advance guys back. So it’s clear that it’s going to take some time to get this Wen meeting done, so we’re going to go ahead and do the Medvedev bilat earlier than was on the schedule.

And as the President waited for Medvedev to be – to move the delegation down into the room, the President also says to staff, we should meet in a group of three with Lula of Brazil, Singh of India, and Zuma of South Africa. All right. So, let’s get a meeting with Wen, let’s get a meeting with these three guys.

We get a call back from advance that Wen is at the hotel and the Chinese staff are at the airport.

Q (Inaudible.)

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don’t know what level of staff, but some of their staff – a decent chunk of their staff was at the airport.

Q So they had all left the Bella Center?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Yes.

Q Including Wen – and that was news to you guys -

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Wen was at the hotel.

Q Oh, he was at the hotel.

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: The Indians – when we called also about Zuma, Lula and Singh, we were told Singh was at the airport.

The Climate Action Network has issued the following letter to protest the removal of Friends of the Earth International, the largest grassroots environmental organization in the world, and Avaaz, the largest online activist organization in the world. Download the letter.

On behalf of Climate Action Network International, and our 500 member organizations, I would like to register our strong concern about the limited NGO access to the second week of the Copenhagen climate negotiations. In particular the removal of badges from Avaaz and Friends of the Earth International.

The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development affirms that “non-governmental organisations play a vital role in the shaping and implementation of participatory democracy.” Civil society has played a constructive and vital role in the climate negotiations since their inception. Civil society brings insight, oversight and connection to people around the world who depend on the work of NGOs to pursue the credibility of the process and integrity of the outcome.

Excluding civil society is not only inconsistent with UN Principles. It is profoundly counterproductive to the spirit of the conference and the practical value of its outcome. To launch the world toward a sustainable future, the process over the critical next few days must be accountable and transparent so that the result will have the power of broad ownership by all sectors. Nothing less than the full and active participation of civil society can produce such an outcome.

On Saturday more than one million people at four thousand events in one hundred and forty countries called for world leaders to agree a fair, ambitious and binding agreement at Copenhagen. One hundred thousand marched on the streets of Copenhagen. Environment and development groups provide a conduit for the world’s people to engage in the climate negotiations. And many of the world’s people will look to civil society to judge the outcome of Copenhagen. It is essential that civil society is allowed to participate in these negotiations.

I urge you to reinstate participants from Avaaz and Friends of the Earth International, and to ensure the plenary sessions are open to NGO attendance.

I am happy to work with you and your teams to ensure the full and fruitful participation of civil society in these historic talks.

Yours sincerely, David Turnbull Director Climate Action Network International

Download the letter.