DC Hill Update 10/1: Senate Climate Bill Released Wednesday with Improvements on House Version

Yesterday, Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced their long awaited clean energy and climate bill, the "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act," into the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

1. Senate Climate Bill Released

The new bill contains two key provisions that the grassroots have been fighting for all summer: a mechanism to crackdown on dirty coal, and stronger 2020 targets. 1Sky absolutely supports these strengthened provisions, and we want to see this new EPW bill passed out of committee with these key provisions intact. 1Sky will have a more detailed policy analysis forthcoming in the next few days.

Senator Boxer will hold a series of hearings on the new bill the week of October 19th. A full committee mark-up in EPW is expected later in the month. Ideally other committees with climate jurisdiction (such as the Finance, Commerce, and Foreign Relations Committees) will be holding markups around this time as well. Once different committees have marked up their portions of the bill, it will be up to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to knit them together into a final package to be considered by the full Senate.

1Sky is hosting hundreds of climate change house parties this week as we head into the heat of the battle in the Senate. We are also footing the bill for thousands of calls to the Senate through the automatic online calling tool on our website.

2. Will Healthcare Continue to Affect the Climate Bill?

The Senate Finance Committee continues to deliberate health care legislation, which prevents them from focusing on climate legislation. The committee has been marking up Chairman Max Baucus' (D-MT) healthcare proposal from 9:00AM until the wee hours of the morning daily with a goal of getting a bill out as soon as possible. Chairman Baucus is still planning a markup for key pieces of the climate bill that deal with international trade and allocation of allowances, saying "I'm going to take my cues largely from leader Reid to see what his schedule is, and how quickly climate change is moving this year." We need to keep the heat on!

3. Murkowski Rider Scare

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) threatened to remove the EPA's ability to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants from stationary sources (e.g., coal-fired power plants) by introducing an amendment that she would attach as a rider to the annual Interior and Environment appropriations bill that made its way through the Senate last week. A behind-the-scenes deal crafted by Senate leaders ensured that the Murkowski amendment would be able to come up for debate, but would not be voted upon.

While this means that the Murkowski amendment to suspend EPA's regulatory authority was not approved this week, it does leave open the possibility that she (or another Republican lawmaker) will introduce the amendment later on this session. While EPA regulation remains an imperfect tool for achieving emissions reductions and strong, comprehensive Congressional action is the optimal mechanism, 1Sky believes it is crucial to have all tools available to cut carbon pollution as soon as possible and will vigorously defend the EPA’s authority.

4. UN General Assembly Talks Climate Change

Last week, President Obama joined over one hundred heads of state at the UN Headquarters in New York City to attend Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's climate summit. Climate advocates eagerly awaited Obama's speech to the UN general assembly, hoping he would put pressure on the Senate to act on climate change. Instead, the President touched mostly on broad themes of the urgency of the problem and a desire to work together with all the countries of the world to act. Rather than explicitly calling on the Senate to further domestic climate legislation as soon as possible, Obama carefully remarked, "I look forward to engaging with [Senate] committees as we move forward."

Chinese President Hu Jintao took the opportunity to announce China's first ever pledge to reduce carbon emissions, framed as a carbon intensity target (a measure of carbon emissions per unit of GDP created). Senate responses to China's announcement were mixed, with Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) commenting, "It was helpful," while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) emphatically asserted that this announcement would not be a "game-changer' in the Senate climate debate.

5. G20 Meeting to Address Climate Financing

Immediately following the close of the UN Climate Summit, many leaders and climate advocates went on to Pittsburgh, PA for a G20 meeting of the world's largest economies, during which finance ministers were slotted to discuss financing a global climate deal. President Obama used the G20 meetings as an opportunity to ask nations to cut funding for fossil fuel subsidies as a step towards prompting the transition to a clean energy economy. A tentative overall agreement on phasing out subsidies on oil and other fossil fuels was reached by the group — a proposal which would cut emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gas pollution by around 10% by 2050.

The meetings were accompanied by many rallies and protests by progressive groups, labor unions, environmental groups, and more. One of our favorite events was a banner drop orchestrated by Greenpeace, warning attendees, "Danger: Climate Destruction Ahead. Reduce CO2 Emissions Now."

Prepared by Ben Wessel and Jason Kowalski. Send comments or questions to benw@1sky.org or jason@1sky.org.