New Climate Bill Framework Embraces GOP Energy Mantra: All of the Above

The U.S. got its first glimpse of the future Senate climate bill today as Democrat John Kerry and Republican Lindsey Graham outlined a compromise plan that fully embraces nuclear power, off-shore drilling, "clean coal" and cap-and-trade.

The framework echoes the House's 17 percent mid-term emissions cut, rather than the tougher 20 percent cut approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. It also seeks to shield agriculture from the impact of a price on emissions.

Right now, the framework is still just that, a sparse framework. The details will come later as various Senate committees combine their bills with those already passed by the Environment and Public Works and Energy and Natural Resources committees.

What the framework does, Kerry said, is lead the way toward “comprehensive climate change and energy legislation that will pass the Senate early next year.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who joined Kerry (D-Mass.) and Graham (R-S.C.) in creating the bipartisan plan, described the framework as a series of commitments on the way to 60 Senate votes. Some senators who have been leery of nuclear power are now committing to a very robust nuclear power title with loan guarantees, tax credits and expedited permits because they see other benefits, he said. On the other side, colleagues reluctant to support a near-term cap on carbon are committing because they gain elsewhere.

“There are well over 60 votes in the U.S. Senate that are in play," Lieberman told reporters. "We don’t have over 60 votes, but there are well over 60 members of the U.S. Senate who I think would like to get to a point where they can say yes to climate change/energy independence legislation.”

Emissions Targets

The framework’s midterm emissions reduction target of 17 percent below 2005 levels sounds similar to the goal passed by the House earlier this year. However, the written framework, and Kerry in his announcement today, both avoided tying that number to a specific date.

Lieberman was only a bit more definitive: “Generally speaking, I think most of us feel that’s 2020,” he said.

The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act bill, pushed through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee amid a Republican boycott earlier this fall, set a more ambitious goal of cutting emissions 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) set a goal of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 (equivalent to about 4 percent below 1990 levels).

Any of the three would fall well short of what climate experts say is necessary to keep global warming in check.

“If a Senate bill is to have any chance of heading off the climate disaster threatening millions of people, it must guarantee that the planet’s carbon dioxide level is reduced to 350 parts per million by reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2020,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Polluter Pays

To start cutting emissions, the proposed Senate framework commits to a market-based cap-and-trade system — and rejects the possibility of a straight carbon tax.

"There’s a reason that a Republican named George Herbert Walker Bush first embraced that [market-based system], because it was the least intrusive, most effective way, least-cost way of achieving an environmental pollution reduction goal,” Kerry told reporters.

He vowed that the final bill would have strong market oversight “to avoid any kind of manipulation,” a serious concern for several senators on both sides of the aisle in recent hearings.