Hoyer: Dems May Split Climate/ Energy Bills To Improve Chance of Passage
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. (image: wellsy.wordpress.com)
As Reuters reported January 20th, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer stated that the pending cap-and-trade legislation may be split in two, so the more politically viable section supporting alternative energy can be passed while wrangling continues on how—and even whether—to limit carbon emissions.
This idea came in response to Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in the Massachusetts Senate race. Brown and his defeated opponent, Democrat Martha Coakley, have diametrically opposed views on carbon legislation and cap-and-trade. Whereas Coakley supports the bill and limiting carbon emissions—in fact, it was a lawsuit she brought as Massachusetts’ Attorney General that led to the EPA declaring that greenhouse gases pose a public health hazard—Brown has stated that he stands squarely against limits on greenhouse gases. Coakley’s loss to Brown deprives Senate Democrats of a filibuster-proof majority, darkening prospects for passing highly contentious, divisive legislation.
The degree to which limiting greenhouse gas emissions is deeply unpopular, owing to its potential to reduce jobs while raising energy costs for most Americans, can be seen in the fact that some Senate Democrats have joined Republicans in opposing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases.
While not everyone is giddily optimistic about alternative energy, the prospect of supporting it engenders nothing like the opposition that limiting or taxing carbon does. After all, supporting alternative energy development can be positioned as a jobs creation measure. Since alternative energy draws much less fire than cap and trade, as Hoyer put it, “[w]e ought not to let one be the victim of the other . . .I think we can move ahead on energy independence” through encouraging the development of new energy sources.
Democratic retrenchment on cap and trade is just part of a general reevaluation, in the face of the loss of a critical Senate seat (and more broadly, the signal that loss sends about the political mood of the electorate), of legislative priorities. For example, the Obama administration and its Congressional allies’ top priority, health care legislation, is likewise being examined for what may be viably passed post-Brown.
While it’s early to make a prediction about someone who has yet to formally take office, it appears that Brown is going to cast a long shadow in 2010 that will almost certainly extend to greenhouse gas reduction and energy reform legislation.
