Greens Give Lukewarm Embrace to Draft Climate Bill

U.S. Reps. Henry Waxman and Ed Markey released a draft of their comprehensive climate legislation today – a 648-page proposal that plays to the political center, particularly the Midwest and coal state Democrats whose votes will be necessary for the legislation to pass.

The draft hits the president’s greenhouse gas reduction targets with cap-and-trade, sets a strong national renewable electricity standard, and proposes new energy efficiency requirements. At the same time, though, it allows for extensive industry offsets, and it could ultimately undermine the EPA.

In a conference call today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Markey reached out to environmental leaders and asked them to support the proposal.

The lukewarm embrace it received indicated that the centrist legislation hit its mark.

The leading environmental groups were polite in their responses – they praised Pelosi for moving climate to the top of the agenda, and they acknowledged the challenge of bipartisanship and the need for Congressional action ahead of international climate treaty talks in Copenhagen. But most were clearly underwhelmed by the draft legislation.

Greenpeace’s U.S. global warming campaign director, Steven Biel:

“The draft bill is a good first step in the right direction, but the bill must be strengthened to ensure that it will achieve the goals of transitioning to a clean energy economy and solving global warming."

Environment America’s Emily Figdor described the draft as

“a pragmatic bill that tries to balance a historic opportunity to unleash clean energy in order to rebuild our economy and stop the climate crisis, with the diversity of views on the Energy and Commerce Committee.”

“We’re disappointed that the bill includes sky-high levels of carbon offsets, which provide less-certain reductions in emissions, and large subsidies, including funds from ratepayers, for still-unproven carbon capture and storage technology.” However, “We look forward to working with the entire committee and the rest of Congress to pass a strong bill that repowers America with clean energy, helps rebuild our economy, and solves global warming.”

Gillian Caldwell of 1Sky said her group's members and their allies would be meeting with House committee members and "asking them to make the bill stronger when it comes to provisions regarding offsets, global warming pollution reductions under the domestic cap, and coal." She encouraged supporters to do the same during the April congressional recess and "advocate for a bold transition to a new green economy."

The draft was based on a compromise blueprint presented two months ago by the corporate giants and environmental groups involved in the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. In a letter to President Obama last week, Markey (D-Mass.), Waxman (D-Calif.) and Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.) highlighted that plan in talking about the importance of any climate legislation taking into account regional differences, such as industry- and coal-based economies.

Markey and Pelosi suggested today that this is the strongest proposal they believe they'll be able to get through Congress this year. They hope to start hearings April 20 and have the House pass it by July.

“The mastery of the chairman in putting this together is having legislation that is fair and available to the American people and that can get the votes to pass without getting watered down,” Pelosi said. “Some people will never accept this, and that’s unfortunate, because everyone has the chance to be part of the solution.”

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