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.